Third Island
by GreatKateZonkeyMachine
Summary: Book three redesigned. The quartet is kidnapped, the Whisperer's computers blow up, and - best of all - you get to hear Kate's insulting rhyme used on Constance! NOTE- This is the dreaded First Fic, so for nostalgia I will keep the bad writing and sum.
1. Abducted

Hi, guys! This is my first publication, so I sincerely hope you like it. My fanfic starts in the middle of book three (Chptr 10: Darkness Falls). I basically changed an event in the third book, and there's sort of a chain reaction causing it to become quite a different story. DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT READ PRISONER'S DILEMMA.

Well, here goes. (Sorry if the chapters are too long.)

Oh, wait! My disclaimer: **I, the Great Kate Zonkey Machine, do not own any part of the Mysterious Benedict Society, nor do I have anything to do with the characters. :( Poor me.**

Chapter One: Abducted

The Salamander was crowded with Ten Men.

Wasting no time, Kate's flashlight beam abandoned the terrifying sight, and the three of them tore from the room. Reynie was thinking in despair: _Ten Men...Ten Men _here. He took one last fearful look at the dark bedroom window before Kate slammed the door.

"Head for the front door!" she cried, hastily giving Sticky the flashlight. "I'll warn the chamber guards!"

The boys complied without thinking. They were flying down the penultimate flight of stairs when they heard Kate shouting overhead.

"No! You don't understand! These men don't care!" They heard the one of the guards make a skeptical, mumbled reply. "Well, they are! No, I don't need to calm down; _you_ need to _listen_! There are Ten Men outside!"

A guard said soothingly, "It's okay, honey, you're just jumpy 'cause the power's out. Why don't you just go back to your room and wait it through?"

Kate snapped back, "Will you---hey, get your hands off me, you stubborn brute!"

Sticky and Reynie looked at each other in chagrin. They ran back up into the hallway where the Whisperer was. Sticky shone Kate's flashlight on the scene. One of the chamber guards was holding Kate's free arm (her other one was holding her penlight), and his partner was looking at the worked-up girl with a sympathetic, condescending expression.

All heads turned to the two of them when they entered. Kate freed herself---twisting the guard's arm rather unnecessarily in the process---and exclaimed "Ugh, we don't have _time _for this! I _did_ warn them!" as they hurried downstairs again.

Perhaps if Kate hadn't been held up, they would have made it in time. As it was, the front door creaked open with the children in the maze-turned-apartment. Sticky sucked in his breath and Kate & Reynie squeezed each other's hands, but it was only Ms. Plugg.

"What's going on? I heard shouts. Hello? Kids?" she inquired, leaning over the threshold. Kate started toward her, but Reynie held her back. Somebody was approaching behind her.

The somebody was, of course, a Ten Man. There was a humming sound as Ms. Plugg gasped and crumpled. Two glowing wires flicked back into the man's wrists. In the blackness, they could make out a tall and slight silhouette. His legs were so long that his step over the unconscious Ms. Plugg was barely any greater than the rest of the strides he took.

The children, however, didn't stick around long enough to see many of these long strides taken by those long legs. They were hurtling for the back exit. Reynie ran into Sticky, and the two of them blundered about stupidly until they stopped seeing stars. Kate flung the door open, but it hit something hard and they heard a grunt.

An instant later, the person who'd grunted was revealed to be a person they knew all too well for their liking: Crawlings.

For a second that bordered on an eternity, man and child stared at each other in disbelief. Kate was the first to act. She popped open her bucket and whipped out...a bottle of lemon juice. It had been effective once before against a Ten Man, and they were desperate.

Unfortunately, quick as Kate was, Crawlings was quicker. _He_ whipped out his own handkerchief, which he shoved into the girl's face; any enemy of these children knew that Kate should be the first to be dealt with. Kate fought back---her hand tightened around his wrist and yanked it away. The handkerchief fell to the ground...and so did Kate.

Sticky stared helplessly at Kate, Reynie at Crawlings. The Ten Man was totally unconcerned as he brushed himself off, replaced his handkerchief, straightened his tie, and picked up his briefcase (which had been the hard thing the door had smacked into).

"Well," he said nonchalantly, examining his lower forearm with mild interest where Kate's nails had drawn blood, "that was relatively painless. Dear, chickies, it's been far too long! Did you miss us?"

Sticky made a gulping sound.

Crawlings leered at them in the dark and hoisted Kate up as if she were a rag doll. "So. Chop, chop, little puppets, let's get moving."

They walked silently over the destroyed lawn towards the Salamander, its dark color making it nearly invisible against the similar color of the night as it towered menacingly over them. Crawlings made cheerful conversation with them while Reynie avoided anyone else's eye and Sticky continued to emit faint whimpering noises every fifteen seconds or so. Then, Crawlings halted to acknowledge some new arrival.

"Ah, Crawlings!" greeted a dreadfully familiar voice. "I see you've already got our little young friends." This figure, like the Salamander, also towered over the children, though it was decidedly more frightening.

"I have. Luck's in our favor tonight, eh? Anyhow, McCracken, I thought you were supposed to be with Sharpe."

McCracken grinned, showing his perfectly white teeth---several of which had been missing the last time they had met. "Sharpe can handle the fussy little one on his own. Should be fun for him. Besides, I saw the duckies with you and I wanted to come and say hello!"

Reynie still would not meet either of the cruel men in the eye. Therefore, he never saw what McCracken saw, which was Kate surreptitiously cracking one eye to peer at her surroundings. McCracken gave her a puzzled look. Crawlings noticed.

"What is it?" he asked curiously. "Have I got bloodstains on my jacket or something?" He looked down at his chest---not even glancing at the limp girl in his arms---with an expression of concern.

McCracken regained his composure and smiled easily. "Oh, no. You've cleaned your suit quite thoroughly since that messy job."

Reynie shuddered involuntarily at the thought of this "messy job," a reaction that McCracken noticed---he never missed much. He grinned again and knelt down to face the boy.

"Goodness, Reynie, you do seem frightened! What's wrong? Are you worried about what terrible things we're going to do to you precious little puppies?" He cupped a hand over the right side of his mouth and glanced melodramatically from side to side, as if offering an exciting secret to a much younger child. "What you _need_ to worry about, Reynie, is not_ what_ things we'll do but _when_ we'll _do_ them. And the answer, if you're very good, is _perhaps_ never..._but_...if you're even the least bit naughty, then the answer is right now. Do you understand?"

Reynie, forced to look directly at McCracken's face rather than his own shoes, nodded slowly. Crawlings chortled appreciatively as McCracken straightened up and tousled Reynie's hair. "Good."

"McCracken, old sport," began Crawlings amiably, "Do you suppose you could take my briefcase?" He held it out expectantly. "Only I can't carry this darling properly with it in my hand."

They escorted the children right up to the side of the monstrous vehicle, Sticky in the lead. He hesitated, afraid. McCracken nudged him with one of the two briefcases he was carrying. Sticky stumbled forward and started up the metal ladder. Reynie cast a final, mournful glance at the slightly comforting shape of Mr. Benedict's old house (from which the telltale sounds of conflict within were audible) before following suit.

Once on board the Salamander, Reynie felt his skin crawl suddenly; he felt as if some sort of cold draft had passed over him. Nonplussed, he tried to say something to Sticky. Curiously, however, he found that his mouth didn't seem to want to work. Or maybe it was his ears. There didn't seem to be any sound at all...and yet..._sound_. Yes, that was it. The Salamander had crept down the lane in absolute silence. Mr. Curtain had expanded his noise cancellation technology. And now, since Reynie and Sticky had been loaded _into_ the Salamander, they were unable to make any sound either.

Their captors climbed into the armored vehicle after them. McCracken winked at the two of them and brushed off his suit while Crawlings propped open a heavy door at the back of the Salamander. It seemed to lead into some sort of small storage chamber.

Crawlings opened his mouth, but no sound came out. His single, punctual eyebrow twitched with annoyance. McCracken in response peered sidelong at the children in a meaningful way. Crawlings rolled his eyes and reached into his briefcase. He withdrew something that was obviously not what it appeared to be---which was a roll of cheap office tape. It was probably some sort of extra-strong duct tape; or, as the Ten Men used it in all probability, _ab_-duct tape. He placed a strip of it over Sticky's mouth, a strip over Reynie's. Both of them could sense his quite plain impatience with the whole operation.

Reynie experimentally attempted to part his lips. For all the good it did, he might as well have tried to lift a steel i-beam with his pinky finger. Crawlings then flipped a switch. Another sort of draft seemed to pass over them, causing the hair on the back of Reynie's neck to straighten.

"That can be for the Whisperer," he intoned, nodding at the door, which was leaning on some sort of cube the size of a drawer. In the darkness it looked eerily like a miniature coffin. "Once the others return with it. Do you know if they'll need any help with the exchange and all? Are the decoy pieces all taken care of?"

McCracken (who had been watching Kate doggedly, unsure of what he'd seen earlier) shrugged. "You forget---I wasn't a part of this operation until recently. And speaking of which,"---he smirked at the sound of a crash and muffled cursing coming from the house---"it sounds like you may yet need me."

As if on cue, a new Ten Man emerged from the house, looking irked. Even in the unnatural dark, the boys recognized him quite easily. A tall and burly man with a flattish nose, bat-like ears, and an ostentatious beard; his name was Garrotte.

"Everything running smoothly?" Crawlings asked.

"Not exactly," replied Garrotte apologetically. "We're a bit shorthanded moving the Whisperer. Hertz says he's taking care of any guards and police and such. Actually, if I didn't know better, I'd say he was afraid of the thing."

"Is he, now?" McCracken said, leaning over the edge of the Salamander. "I suppose you'll want my help?" He was already descending the ladder.

"If you'd be so kind. In fact, both of you can come, can you not?"

"Not me," responded Crawlings. "Somebody's got to stay and babysit the urchins."

"Oh! So you have got them. Nobody tells me anything. Why isn't the noise cancellation turned on, then?"

"Don't worry," Crawlings replied calmly. "They won't be crying out for help any time soon."

"Alright." Garrotte still looked skeptical. "So, are you coming, McCracken?"

"I'm right behind you." McCracken jumped the last rungs and followed Garrotte about twenty yards away from the Salamander. Or was it twenty-five? _Kate'll know,_ he thought, before remembering that Kate was unconscious---wasn't she?

McCracken wasn't convinced of that. He drew Garrotte aside briefly, who seemed put out about something. He made a none-too-pleased response, but the larger man waved him away. Then Garrotte strolled back into the house, and McCracken turned to look at the Salamander and its occupants. His eyes and Reynie's met for an instant---and then McCracken moved so quickly that he seemed to evaporate into the shadows.

Reynie started and furrowed his brow in concentration, trying to see where he'd gone. But the Ten Man was nowhere to be seen. He was so immersed in his bewilderment and alarm that he jumped when something cold, hard, and tight clasped around his wrist.

He turned his head around and saw that Crawlings was standing over him, and had just handcuffed him to a bar on the edge of the vehicle where he was sitting. Crawlings sat down opposite Reynie and Sticky and slid his handkerchief out of his breast pocket.

"You look thoughtful, Reynie," he said. "What scheme are you cooking up over there? I hope for your sake you're not being naughty." He grinned and patted the handkerchief on his knee.

Had he not been so intent on scaring the children, he might not have made that mistake. As it happened, Kate---lying on the bench beside Crawlings---wisely chose that moment to stop pretending she was asleep in order to snatch up the delicately folded piece of cloth. She pressed it to his nose before he had time to act shocked. Then he slumped to the floor, and this time no one was acting.

Kate turned her head and smiled impishly at her dumbstruck friends. "Hang on," she whispered excitedly. "I'll get us out of here and then I'll take those horrible things off."

Whether she was referring to the tape, the handcuffs or both Reynie didn't know, but he was instantly distracted. The girl leaped over two rows of benches for the steering wheel of the Salamander. Regrettably, she was not able to reach it, for a some vicelike grip snatched her out of the air in mid-jump.

She was pinned to someone's chest by a pair of immensely strong arms. Even so, she managed to wriggle free and make another dive for the wheel. McCracken grabbed her again, however, this time by the ankle. She tripped and hit her forehead painfully on something very solid.

Her yell was cut short by the breath being knocked out of her when McCracken hurled her to the back of the Salamander, where she landed on the bench in between the two boys, who could do nothing but watch helplessly as she clutched her forehead and ground her teeth, while McCracken chained her to Sticky by their wrists.

Kate tried one last time to get something useful out of her bucket, but the Ten Man ripped it from her person, paying no mind to the belt that he tore in the process except to remove it; evidently the buckle was too solid for his comfort.

More Ten Men came trotting towards the Salamander; two of them were hauling along a familiar metal chair, while another was carrying a couple of computers---one for each arm. This man was also familiar, though Reynie and Kate couldn't place how. Sticky, however, remembered perfectly the Ten Man with exceptionally long arms who had come to call at a hotel in Thernbaakagen. It was the length of his arms that allowed him to carry the computers by himself.

Sticky shivered. His memories of the long-armed thug weren't pleasant. In Thernbaakagen, he had tried to use his shock-watches on Kate. Then he had proceeded to threaten the four of them with a whip disguised as a necktie. He also saw that the man who was carrying the Whisperer with Garrotte (and looking none too happy about it) was also the one who had attacked Ms. Plugg on the front steps.

"We'd better hurry, fellows," said McCracken heavily. "I fear Little Miss Trickster over here will have drawn inconvenient attention with her cries."

It took two trips to get the Whisperer and all its computers loaded into the storage chamber. When the job was done, there was scarcely room inside it for the little box Crawlings had propped the door on. McCracken sat down with Kate's bucket tantalizingly visible in his lap. The Ten Men, as usual, were perfectly friendly---in an intimidating sort of way. Then, with Garrotte at the wheel, the Salamander sped away from home, comfort, and safety.


	2. On the River

Again, sorry if that last chapter was a bit lengthy. I've tried to make this one shorter. Do I seem too unenthusiastic? Okay, let me start over...hem, hem...Hey, folks!!!!!!!!! Want to know what happens to our heroes????????? Are you just _dying_ for more????? Well you got it!!!!!!

Disclaimer: **(See chapter one---duh!)**

Chapter Two: On the River

Reynie Muldoon saw the smooth, reflective surface of the water thrown into oblivion and thrashed about in the Salamander's wake as it soared over the river. He _saw_ it, but did not hear it. The noise cancellation had been activated once more; they were still too close to the city for the Ten Men to risk traveling without it.

Under much less dire circumstances, he would have enjoyed this sort of outing. The frothing effect their movement had on the surface of the river was pleasant enough to look at, even though 'pleasant' would be the last word Reynie would choose to describe the current situation; He had not been away from the house for several months, and it should have been somewhat of a relief that he was finally tasting fresh air, though 'relieved' was hardly the way to describe Reynie's feelings at the time---'mortified' was more like it.

He kept turning over what he knew was going on, searching for bright spots in his mind, and finding none. What he knew: They were being taken against their will by five wicked, dangerous men---along with the stolen Whisperer---to a madman who hated them all ferociously, and who had just caused a total blackout in the entire city of Stonetown, most probably to be brainswept and/or used as bargaining chips. The bad side: They were being taken against their will by five wicked, dangerous men---along with the stolen Whisperer---to a madman who hated them all ferociously, and who had just caused a total blackout in the entire city of Stonetown, most probably to be brainswept and/or used as bargaining chips. The good side: Nothing that Reynie could see.

Reynie closed his eyes briefly; He didn't want any of the Ten Men to have the satisfaction of seeing his eyes so shiny. However, a roaring and rushing sound startled him into opening them relatively soon.

The Ten Men had turned the sound back on. The effect was that of a silent, thoughtful car ride being suddenly and rudely interrupted by a burst of extremely loud music from the radio---and Reynie didn't even like to listen to the radio. Clearly the Salamander was now distant enough from Stonetown that they could safely relinquish the pressing bubble of utter, unceasing silence.

Actually, Reynie's note of being kidnapped by _five_ wicked and dangerous men wasn't entirely accurate; Crawlings was still out cold, his mouth lolling open slightly. This given his bald head, missing eyebrow, and thick mustache didn't make for the most altogether attractive of sights. Sticky gave the Ten Man a look of disgust from behind his tape.

McCracken seemed to have decided that Crawlings's slumber had gone on long enough. The Ten Men must have had their own method for reviving their handkerchief victims, because he did not seem the least perturbed; in fact, with a knowledgeable, practiced air, he opened his briefcase very professionally and drew out a small ink pen the color of which none of them could make out in the blackness.

All three of them flinched at the clicking sound of the briefcase opening. Reynie vividly remembered them having much the same reaction nearly a year ago on that island in the North Sea. He almost smiled. He could recall McCracken smiling and flashing his bright white teeth---and then Constance had screamed in his face so loud that he had stepped back. That had wiped the evil smirk right off of his face.

Well, thinking of Constance, there _was_ one good thing about their situation: The Ten Men still didn't have Constance. Irrespective of that, though, they were in pretty deep trouble.

They watched as McCracken shook the pen and walked over to crouch beside Crawlings. He rolled up the unconscious Ten Man's sleeve and placed the tip of the pen on his arm as if it were a syringe. Then he clicked it. He stood up and looked at Crawlings expectantly.

At first he was still, but then he began to tremble violently. His eyes fluttered. When they came into focus, the first thing they did was swivel around to look at the quickly reddening patch on his left arm. He rubbed it with his other hand.

"What'd you do that for?" he said, eyes swiveling to look up at McCracken. The inner end of his eyebrow pointed down towards his nose.

"Woke you. Enough napping. Stand up."

With this succession of two-word sentences, McCracken turned and walked back to the wheel. He took it over from Garrotte, who sat down wringing his hands with a pained and relieved expression.

Crawlings's eyes were still swiveling. This time they fixed on the children. His eyes passed over Reynie, both with his tape over their mouths and looking exceedingly afraid, and then on to Kate, who stared back with a defiant glow in her eye. His eyebrow shot upward, and then went back into the inner-point-down-outer-point-up-angry expression. Kate glared back at him without showing any sign of her fear, which was inwardly immense.

With a look of angry embarrassment, Crawlings got to his feet and picked up his briefcase. He sat down near Kate, still shooting withering glances at her.

Reynie looked around nervously. There were still no defining features of their surroundings. He had been trying, off and on, to discern where the Ten Men were whisking them away to by paying close attention to their route. But it was all the same: water, land, darkness. He could also see the silhouettes of some far-away buildings, but that was useless if he couldn't tell _what_ buildings they were.

He closed his eyes again briefly; they were just a little bit watery.

Sticky, meanwhile, was attempting in vain to polish his spectacles with handcuffs on.

Kate was still having a staring contest with Crawlings, thinking about how much she loathed him and all the other Ten Men.

And they were all thinking of Milligan. And Mr. Curtain. They seemed an awful lot closer to the latter than the former.

* * *

"Take over, will you? I want a few words with our dear young passengers."

The long-armed man held the steering wheel while McCracken went to the back of the Salamander, where the children were. They stared up at him with expressions of mingled defiance and fear. Mostly fear, he was pleased to see. Reynie's handcuffs were jingling. Sticky's bald head was sweaty.

"So," he said amusedly, squeezing in between Reynie and Kate. "So. We're on our way, aren't we, dearies? Soon you'll be having a nice little reunion with Mr. Curtain, and I'll finally get consolation for taking all of this trouble. Who knows? Maybe if you behave yourselves, you might even be treated to a session in the Whisperer!"

McCracken was obviously enjoying himself very much. Reynie felt sure he was turning some color, but he didn't know if it was red, white, or green.

"There is a teensy complication, however. Mr. Curtain needs to get a few last minute things in order for his grand plans---things that involve you chickies. Sooner or later, we're going to permit you to talk with your beloved Mr. Benedict over the radio. Of course, there's always the chance you'll be naughty and try to interfere with this simple operation. I think you'll recall Mr. Curtain's...'kid gloves'."

At the mere mention of the mocking name that Mr. Curtain had given his dreadful gloves, Reynie's stomach did an award-winning backflip. His reaction must have shown on his face because McCracken grinned and continued, "I thought you would."

They most certainly did remember them. They remembered the horrific feeling of being struck by lightning when they were touched by the gloves---like pain erupting from every one of their nerves at once.

"Well, if you misbehave, that's what you can look forward to. However, if you act like the good little cherubs that I know you can be, there won't be any need for such unpleasantness. It's your choice," he said, shrugging. His voice was soft, so that the children strained to hear the smarmy words over the roaring of their movement on the river.

"Benedict is going to ask you some questions," McCracken went on, "And Mr. Curtain has made it abundantly clear that if you don't answer in the desirable fashion, you'll get a nice little reunion with his gloves too. I think you'll be able to tell what answer he wants you to give.

"You'll definitely be living with us for a few days, and we want to make that experience as painful---excuse me, I mean pain_less_---as possible. You will be provided with food and bathroom visits, so please don't whine about anything. If all goes well for us, you'll get to see your mommies and daddies again soon."

The children took this to mean that the Ten Men were going to try and take their families prisoner as well.

"Excellent! Are there any questions?" he asked, grinning wickedly at Sticky, whose mouth (along with Reynie's) was still taped shut. Kate made a small noise of outrage and indignation. "No? Well all right, then! Now, there's just one more tiny matter to take care of..."

He reached into his suit coat. The three of them flinched, imagining McCracken pulling some horrendous weapon out and using it on them---but there were only three pieces of thick, dark-colored cloth.

He wrapped one of them around Sticky's head, so that they covered his spectacles. Sticky did not resist. Then he started to do the same with Kate.

"Now, be sure not to bite me when I put this on, my little kitty," he murmured as he blindfolded her.

"I'm not _your_ little anything!" Kate snarled, unable to contain herfelf. After a pause, she added, "I'm Milligan's."

McCracken chuckled, tightening the knot in her blindfold. "You're mine _now_," he whispered back.

Once Reynie, too, was secured in a blindfold, so that all he could see was true, itchy blackness, he mulled over how hopeless their situation was. With McCracken's ever-cautious tactic of blinding them, Reynie's feeble plan had been shattered and swept into a dustpan.

Reynie was not feeling good. He was blindfolded, gagged, itchy, handcuffed, kidnapped, and thirsty, with nothing but the prospect of being brainswept ahead of him. When McCracken cheerfully remarked that they would be there in a couple of hours and that the children would love their new room, Reynie couldn't help but think there was nowhere in the world that he would love to be less.


	3. Joey

So. The third chapter of "Third Island" (geddit?). I decided to do this one from the perspective of this 'Officer Williams' briefly mentioned in the real book. Maybe it was a mistake---I'll leave that up to you.

Disclaimer: **I can't believe some of you haven't figured this out yet.**

Chapter Three: Joey

"You want cream, right, Joe?"

"No thanks, Sherry, not this time," said Joey, rubbing his eyes.

The lady at the counter looked a little surprised, but she shrugged and waved with her dull painted fingernails as he sat down at a tiny round table. He sipped his steaming cup of coffee. It had been a long day.

First, he had awoken to the sound of his baby girl, Denise, bawling at the top of her infant lungs. After consoling her, he had brought in the nanny before rushing off to the police station. From there, things had only gotten more hectic. He had been at work all day and into the night, until he finally got to rest here at this familiar coffee shop.

Joey took off his cap and ran his fingers through his sandy, sweaty hair. Things had been much easier when his wife was alive. And to top it all off, there was something eating at him, something he couldn't place. He felt as if there was something very important that he was forgetting; he knew he ought to be doing something, but he wasn't quite sure what. The nagging feeling had been coming on for a while now. The most maddening thing was that Joey had no idea what it meant, what it was about.

Staring off into space, he was actually staring unseeingly at a sunken-eyed woman tapping away at her old laptop. He frowned. Something was odd about this woman. Was it the laptop? No, no, he didn't think so. Was it the face? No, he didn't recognize her. Joey racked his brain, looking at her frazzled hair. Then he sat up very straight.

The suit. The suit and the briefcase.

He had seen many people like her around town today, all wearing the same pinstriped suits and carrying identical expensive-looking briefcases. Strangely enough, they were all _men_. Big and brawny men, too; Joey had the feeling each one of them could rip him apart with his bare hands if they wanted to.

The policeman shivered. Nighttime was putting creepy thoughts into his head. _Come on, man, think!_ he ordered himself. What seemed suspicious about those men? They had looked friendly enough. But they had a nerve-rattling air about them all the same.

Joey frowned more deeply. Now there was something. Every time he'd seen them, they had always been in _pairs_.

He looked again at the exhausted woman. Somehow he didn't think she had anything to do with the men; she was just attired similarly. They---

Suddenly, his musings were interrupted by the dim lights in the shop flickering, and going out entirely.

"_No!_" Evidently the poor woman had not saved whatever she was typing.

Sherry started to say something, but Joey wasn't listening. He crossed over to the glass wall and peered out. Every single building, as far as the eye could see, had gone pitch-black.

A total power outage. A blackout.

Joey groaned. He needed to head to the station. He was sure they would need him to do something, though he hadn't the faintest what that task might be.

By the time he was in his car, other people were out of their homes, staring bemusedly at the sky and talking worriedly. The traffic was already thickening.

He wondered for a moment whether to use his siren, but thought better of it. There was no guarantee of any urgent need for police officers. Besides, he didn't want to alarm the people further.

Teck, teck, teck.

He looked around. Somebody was tapping on the driver's seat window. The man flashed a shiny badge at him and opened the door.

"Hate to intrude, sir, but I'm afraid I need to borrow your car. Budge up there, d'you think you could? It's all right, I'm an authority too," he added, seeing Joey's less-than-convinced expression.

Half a minute later, they were tearing through a back alley, siren blaring and all. Joey was clawing at his seat like a frightened cat, and the man---Milligan, he said his name was---was conversing soothingly.

"Relax, friend. What's your name?"

"W-Williams...Joseph Williams."

"Well, Officer Williams, you must be wondering what I'm in such a hurry for. I'll tell you.

"We're going to a house in the suburbs. When we get there, there may well be some men there. Men with business suits and briefcases."

Joey turned white.

"They're called Ten Men---"

"Tin M-men?"

"_Ten_ men, as in the number ten."

"Why are they c-c-called...?"

"Because they've got ten different ways to hurt people. Kill them if they can."

Joey didn't reply, but rather made a sort of gurgling noise.

"In their briefcases---oh, bother! Hold on," he warned, for between the buildings on either side a road was coming into view; they were about to smash into several cars sidelong.

Milligan spotted a stack of crates covered in a firm tarpaulin that was stretched tight. He turned the car sharply and took a rickety drive over the pile, turning it into somewhat of a makeshift ramp.

Joey did not scream (his voice seemed to be stolen away), but rather gasped and prayed and shut his eyes for all he was worth.

Then, the police car hit ground with a gutwrenching jerk and continued speeding toward wherever this madman was taking him. Joey opened his eyes and looked behind them: they had managed to leap completely over the street without dying. Joey saw quite a few rapidly shrinking heads staring at them in shock and wonder as they zoomed away.

* * *

Five and a half minute later, Joey was standing outside his car in front of an enormous old house he had never seen before. Milligan was talking anxiously with some other agents and checking every nook and cranny for Joey had no idea what. Finally, his curiosity got the better of him and he asked the man what he was looking for.

"Four children were staying here," said Milligan absently. "That's why the Ten Men came, I think---to take these children away."

"Oh," said Joey, looking very grave.

Milligan's face lit up. He crossed the street, over to a broken down shed and pressed his ear against the door. After a few seconds, his expression darkened. He murmured a few words ("Now, Kate, if you're in there, don't attack me when I open this door...") and unbolted the wooden door. Joey couldn't see what was inside the cellar, but it was apparently quite empty.

"This is not good," said Milligan, walking back to the police car. "I can't find---" His face grew softer. "You should sit down, my friend. You're about to faint."

Joey obliged by collapsing onto the back seat. He lay there, staring at the ceiling of his car. Utterly immobile, he heard a long exchange between those outside, none of which made any sense to him.

A low yet feminine voice shouted from high up: "Milligan! Oh, Milligan, I'm so sorry!"

"It's all right, Ms. Plugg, it isn't your fault the children were taken."

"They were? Oh no, then it's worse than I thought! They did more than that, Milligan! That _chair_ is destroyed! The special chair in that green room! I'm sorry---I've failed you."

And then there was the sound of something slamming closed; and a heavily muffled, barely audible sob.

He heard Milligan hissing to somebody close by the vehicle: "Destroyed? They _destroyed_ the Whisperer?"

"I thought the would have stolen it along with the kids..." came the reply.

Then, a new voice joined the conversation. "Milligan! Is everyone okay? Is anyone hurt? Oh, I can't believe we weren't here for them just when they needed us most!"

"It was probably planned that way, you know. And no, I'm afraid everyone is not okay." Milligan's voice sounded extremely grim. "The Ten Men took Reynie, Sticky, and Kate with them."

A woman's voice gasping. "But---the Whisperer---can the Salamander be tracked? Could you and your sentries..."

"I doubt it, but we can try. I fear the cause will be lost at the river, if the Salamander escaped that way. Come on, Gristle, let's go get Hardy!"

The woman's voice faded. "Number Two! Number Two!"

A scratchy, masculine voice. "What happened to the guards on duty? If Ms. Plugg---"

"Ms. Plugg was attacked with shockwatches. As were the chamber guards. I don't know about Mr. Bane. Frankly, I don't trust that man, and I don't think Mr. Benedict does either."

"Actually, I do know what happened to Bane. An officer found him in the Whisperer's chamber. He says that one of the Ten Men cornered the kids in their room. He says he tried to help, but the man pressed a handkerchief to his nose. He woke up in the chamber, where they must have dragged him---he claims."

"What a load of---ah, there you are, Hardy!"

A deep voice that gave an impression of great bulk greeted: "Yeah, Benedict is having some narcoplexy---"

"Narcolepsy,"

"---some narcolepsy issues, and the others are taking care of him. We'll all have to cart this lot off to secure locations soon enough, you know."

"Not just yet. You need to come with us and help track down the Salamander. The Ten Men took the children away in it."

"Uh-oh! Milligan...your daughter...I'm so..."

"Don't be sorry," Milligan growled. "We'll get them back!"

"Yes. Yes, of course we will."

The scratchy voice cut in, "Hey, have you fellows heard anything of that guard, Bane?"

It sounded like someone was scratching their head. "No, don't believe so. Couple of us spoke to the chamber guards---they're still a bit out of it, but they'll be fine. Milligan, one of them said that he saw the kids in the hallway. Apparently they were panicky and ran off downstairs..."

"Ha! That proves it! The treacherous little wretch---he _was_ lying!"

"What are you raving about?"

"Mr. Bane told me a bunch of baloney about a Ten Man coming for the children _in their room!_ I'll bet he just hid in that blasted room like the coward he is, and then they came in to get the Whisperer and found him, and that's when he got that handkerchief---"

"Wait a minute." Milligan's voice again. "Was he actually unconscious when the officers found him?"

"No."

"Then how do we know he wasn't lying about that altogether?"

"That's something, I suppose. Maybe..."

The rest was drowned out by a rumbling engine.


	4. Constance

Chapter 4 has arrived (it's much shorter than the others). If you were hoping we'd switch back to Reynie, then sorry. This one's from the POV of...well, you'll find out, won't you?

**Disclaimer: OH. MY. GOD.**

Chapter Four: Constance

The Brookville Branch was burned. The Quarryside Branch was closed. It was for these reasons that, at 7:30 in the evening, a very small child in her red raincoat emerged from a bus at the steps of the Stonetown Main Library.

Constance climbed the front steps with moderate difficulty. Then she pushed her way through the doors. Then she wandered through the library, those she passed either ignoring her or doing no more than look at her with mild curiosity. She could tell none of them were actually that interested in her.

She chose to stop at a floor that had no men with suits or briefcases in sight. She toddled over to a small table that had an untouched peanut butter candy bar on it in a cellophane wrapper. A few seconds later, the food inside the wrapper had mysteriously disappeared.

Constance wondered briefly what to do now (in fact she wondered for a fleeting instant where she was and what she was doing), and decided simply to sit down. She waited for someone to come for her, before remembering that she had run away and no one knew where she was. Constance realized that she was getting upset. She was feeling lonely, and more than a little scared.

She cocked her head, looking at a particularly thick book on a low shelf. She squinted at the title. _The Myth of ESP_. She snorted disdainfully. _I'll bet even Sticky would find that book boring_, she said to herself, but the thought of Sticky made her throat hurt a little. Why on earth had she run away?

After deliberating for a while, she concluded that she did, in fact, want to go back home. She stood up.

The lights went out.

Not just the lights in the library, but the entire city---she could see so through a window directly across from her. Everyone in the vicinity froze for a few seconds. Then some dim, red emergency lighting came on, and all of the people started moving towards the exits. Except for Constance. She moved aside the abnormally thick tome and hid herself in its place on the shelf.

She was starting to feel very panicky. She sensed that someone, maybe even Ten Men, was looking for her. She also had the sneaking suspicion that her friends were in grave danger. She gulped and looked down at _The Myth of ESP_. There was a code on it: **133 N292**.

Struck by a sudden inspiration, she concentrated with all her might on the series of letters and numbers, and sent her thoughts into the mind of the person she felt most warmly to at the moment; and that was Reynie. She wouldn't send it to Mr. Benedict---she was somewhat angry with him, though she couldn't recall exactly why. Then she waited.

And waited. And waited.

She scowled to herself. What was taking them so long? It had already been, what, five minutes! She was just planning a rhyming insult that she would scold them with once they finally found the time to come and rescue her, when a chill came over her; a chill that seemed to spread from inside of her. She shivered. Someone was coming.

The door creaked open ominously. A well-polished black shoe stepped into a room, supporting a tall man who carried a leather briefcase. His dark eyes narrowed and swept the room, his head turning mechanically back and forth, back and forth.

Setting down the briefcase, he stepped toward a puny little table. On the floor next to it was a candy wrapper, covered in crumbs and peanut butter.

Sharpe smiled to himself. The girl was obviously here. He sniffed the room---actually sniffed it---and noticed an upturned book near a sizable gap in the lowest shelf. It was very thick.

The Ten Man leaned in to look at the book, and noticed another peanut butter smear on its spine, above the call number. His eyes moved up to the dark gap in the shelf, and their sharp gaze caught sight of a tiny boot.

Sharpe smiled openly this time. "Hello, muffin," he said, to a small, frightened squeak. He reached for the shelf.

Despite her immeasurable fear, Constance couldn't help but drift off. The van's tires made a humming noise against the asphalt as they moved. Her eyes got heavier and heavier, while Sharpe kept his own keen eyes fixed on the road, until finally they became too heavy and Constance fell asleep.


	5. Being Too Bold

And, we're back into the long chapters again. This one is close to what happens in the actual novel, with a few differences. Hope you enjoy it.

Disclaimer: **Please, please tell me you didn't look here.**

Chapter Five: Being Too Bold

McCracken's hand firmly on his shoulder, Reynie's mind was racing as the Ten Men steered them towards...whatever they were being steered towards. None of the details he could think of seemed to offer any hint as to their location, which meant that the Mysterious Benedict Society was totally and utterly powerless.

After arriving in the Salamander, they had been driven up onto dry land and through what had seemed to be an enormous gate. Then they had been unloaded and escorted---still without water, food, or bathroom---into a cold building that echoed slightly.

Keeping up their cheerful banter, the Ten Men marched the three of them into a stark room that was so bright Reynie could sense it through his blindfold. McCracken undid the tight knot in Reynie's blindfold, and whipped it off with a flourish that caused Reynie to turn slightly and stumble.

After allowing themselves a laugh, the Ten Men withdrew and stood to wait outside the door. Reynie looked up---and leaped back.

There he was, staring evilly at them all; Mr. Curtain hadn't changed at all since they had last seen him (except that the circles under his eyes were more prominent now). Glancing nervously to both sides, Reynie observed that both his friends wore expressions similar to his own: mingled fear, surprise, defiance, and anger. Mr. Curtain looked coolly back at them. His expression was much the same, minus the fear and surprise. On the contrary, he seemed positively giddy.

He circled them once using a remote control for his wheelchair. Then, without any kind of a warning, he shot forward. The children leaped backwards again. Mr. Curtain's face lit up with mirth, and he opened his mouth, but no sound came out; no dolphin screech. Looking annoyed, he did something on his remote control, and the sound came rushing back.

"That's better," he said, tucking the remote away. He sighed. "Although I'm afraid I've rather lost my urge to laugh now."

The children couldn't say they minded that Mr. Curtain no longer felt the need to express his amusement at their expense.

"Well, well," he continued, a businesslike expression on his face but a wicked gleam in his eye. "Here you are at last! I've so missed you children since our last exchange. The duskwort was a disappointment, but now I've got something almost as valuable, and much less important to keep healthy---you!"

Kate rolled her eyes pointedly. Mr. Curtain was asserting his control, something that was hardly new to them. It did get rather boring sometimes.

Mr. Curtain looked at her with an unpleasant look on his face. "Yes, yes, Miss Wetherall. I daresay I had nearly forgotten your impudence. My charming men back there,"---he jerked his chin at the doorway---"have informed me of a rather bold escape attempt on your part. It would be wise to note that from now on being _too_ bold will result in painful consequences. Understand?"

Reynie and Sticky nodded hastily. Their mouths were un-taped now (Crawlings had ripped the tape off, making both of their eyes water). Kate, however, pretended not to hear and looked around the room in mock interest.

"Is this your new office? Hmmm...Cold, grey, empty, dusty, blank...it suits you, doesn't it?"

Mr. Curtain's eye twitched slightly. "Miss Wetherall," he began icily, "Did you not hear what I just said about _being too bold?_" He reached into his suit coat and took out a pair of metallic, shiny silver gloves.

The children instantly recoiled. Even Kate flinched. Before Mr. Curtain had tugged them more than halfway on, however, another most familiar voice rang out.

"Mr. Curtain! Mr. Curtain, sir!" cried S.Q. Pedalian, hurrying into the room. He squeezed with some difficulty through the group of Ten Men outside, who characteristically refused to yield.

Mr. Curtain closed his eyes and muttered to himself.

"The van's here," said S.Q. timidly.

Mr. Curtain's eyes popped open. "It is? Oh, excellent! Does Sharpe...?"

"Constance is with him," said S.Q. at once.

The children looked at each other.

Soon, they heard voices outside, coming from the Ten Men. A moment later, Sharpe walked into the room, carrying none other than a most addled-looking Constance Contraire.

The Ten Men were gone. Mr. Curtain and S.Q. were gone. The Society, together at last, was alone in the undersized room. Constance, having immediately relayed her story, was insisting that she had been through more than any of them in past hours.

"I had to sit by Sharpe!" she exclaimed. "Did _you_ guys have to sit next to Ten Men?"

"Yes," the others said in unison, but Constance wasn't listening.

"_And_ he wouldn't let me eat or drink anything for hours! I'll bet you didn't go as long as me without being fed."

They sighed. "Yes, we did," they replied, without much real conviction. Constance, of course, wasn't listening.

"I had to hide in a bookshelf!"

"_We_ had to---" Sticky retorted, but Reynie silenced him with a subtle shake of the head.

"Besides, that van was _stinky!_ Can you imagine..."

As Constance ranted on, Reynie began to analyze the room they were in. It was barely furnished: a desk on one side of the room, and a bookcase (empty, apart from a couple of spider webs) opposite it. He frowned. It seemed strange that the room had no windows at all. He stood up, crossed the room, and flipped the light switch. Constance stopped talking.

"What did you do that for?" she said irritably.

"Look," said Reynie quietly. He pointed at the bookcase; a faint glow could be perceived behind it.

"A window," Kate breathed.

She stood up and made for the bookcase, but footsteps outside the door made her jump back down, while Reynie hastily turned the lights back on.

A millisecond later, the door was opened and an unfamiliar Ten Man stood framed in it. He gave the children an amused look.

Reynie glanced behind him. Constance had her face hidden, and Sticky had his chin propped unconvincingly on his hands. He fought hard not to grimace at their poor attempts to act natural.

The Ten Man didn't seem to have noticed, however; in any case he was too engrossed in the act of puffing up his chest and making his briefcase visible in an attempt to look impressive and intimidating.

"Mr. Curtain says you can have your bathroom break now," he said in a deep voice.

"And food?" Constance asked hopefully.

The Ten Man flashed a mockingly sympathetic smile, revealing his bright white teeth. "Not yet, cookie," he replied. "I think S.Q. might be around with a bowl of popcorn in a few hours or so."

Reynie's stomach grumbled loudly.

In the bathroom, Constance was complaining loudly to Kate about her hunger.

"All the Ten Men keep calling me _foods_," she said indignantly. "I've been called muffin, cookie, sugar plum, and sweetey pie! It's driving me crazy!"

"Don't let it get to you, Connie-girl," said Kate, cupping her hands under a running tap for some water. "At least we're all back together again."

They walked back to the room, passing five doors and an elevator. Sticky stared wistfully at the elevator (the building they were in had many floors), but the Ten Man pushed him, and he kept walking.

Another Ten Man came trotting around a corner, walking toward them. "Bludgins," he called to the Ten Man who had his hand on Sticky's back.

The first man waved. "Yes, hello, Hertz."

"D'you think you could tell Mr. Curtain that all's clear? I've been up on the roof for ours, and I'm sweltering, and my break's finally come, and I need a bathroom break."

"Sure, after I take the cherubs back up to their room."

"Great. Oh, and, Bludgins..." he glanced at the children.

Bludgins sighed. He went some feet away from them and leaned in so Hertz could tell him whatever it was he didn't want the children to hear, never taking his eyes off of them. They themselves were listening hard, but they only caught a few words: "....Curtain....radio....Benedict....Whisperer....brainsweep....chickies...ruby...."

Back in their room, the children plunged into speculation once they were finally alone.

"Did you just hear what I just heard?"

"Does that mean that Mr. Curtain intends to brainsweep us?"

"What was that about Mr. Benedict?"

"I understood all of that except the part about the ruby!"

"Hmmm. I wonder what it meant?"

"Ruby, huh? Ruby..._ruby_...ruby...I just don't know."

They sat immersed in their sleuthing for a while before they remembered the bookcase and the window.

Kate gave the bookcase an appraising look. It would make too much noise to slide it---and at any rate we'd have no chance of putting it back in time if someone came to the room, like what happened with that Ten Man, Blo...buh...What was his name?"

"Bludgins," piped up Sticky. "We've heard of him before, remember?"

The others just stared blankly at him.

Sticky made an exasperated noise. "When we were imprisoned in that cave, on the duskwort island! McCracken came in and said something about him. Do you not remember at all? He said, 'I did hear from Bludgins. Evidently Rhonda Kazembe has sent the pigeon back with a note.'"

The others pretended to remember and slapped their foreheads.

"Anyway, back to the bookcase," said Reynie. "What if we move that desk, and prop the shelf up on it?"

"Good idea," said Kate. She got Reynie to help her move the desk across the room (he seemed to be more of a hindrance than a help, actually), and---taking care to make no suspicious sounds that might cause S.Q. or worse to come running---lowered the bookshelf until it was leaning sturdily on the desk.

They noticed immediately that the window was painted shut, and so Kate took her knife back from Reynie and proceeded to slice down the edges. The window was very grimy and covered in unpleasant substances put on it by birds taking flight, so they decided to open it up and look out that way.

There wasn't much to see, unfortunately. Their window opened onto a tiny, pitiful courtyard surrounded on all four sides by a brick building, beyond the four stories of which they could see nothing. The roof was totally flat, but they couldn't see onto the surface of it.

"I've still got your rope, Kate," said Reynie, pulling it out of his shirt, but Kate only shook her head and frowned.

"No, no, it isn't long enough---only eighteen and a half feet. Although..." She closed her eyes and shook her head vigorously. "No. No, that _definitely_ won't work."

The others stared at her. "You know," said Sticky after a while, "you're so good at fooling our enemies, but when you're trying to trick _us_ you're a joke."

"Speaking of which, Little Miss Trickster," said Reynie, voicing a question that had been bugging him for awhile, "just how _did_ you manage to stay conscious when Crawlings ambushed you with that handkerchief."

Kate shrugged, transparently pleased to have the subject changed. "It was easy, really. As long the right factors come into play."

"I see. The right factors---such as?"

"Well, if you hold your breath, close your mouth and eyes, and make sure the handkerchief isn't pressing too hard, you can stay awake. Provided the handkerchief isn't on your face too long. That was the difference between me and Crawlings. And all the other poor souls they've done that to---"

"Aha!" Constance yelled in triumph, pointing her finger accusingly at Kate's face; the older girl looked startled. "The difference between you and somebody else! You think that _you_ could do it, don't you? Don't you?"

"What are you talking about, Constance?" Kate was baffled.

"You think that _you_ could manage the drop to the ground, but the rest of us couldn't!"

It took a second for the others to realize what she was talking about. Sticky looked at Kate, shocked. "Is that...true?"

Kate hung her head. "Yes, I guess. It's not that I think I'm more skilled than you, it's just that...I can't help having _thought_ it, can I? I mean, it was just an idea, right?"

"No, no! It's great that you---"

"If you can, you should!" Reynie said, starting to get excited. "Never mind what the rest of us---"

Now it was Kate's turn to look shocked. "But, what about you guys? What if Mr. Curtain has some terrible punishment for you once he realizes I've gone?"

"But you can get _help!_"

"Yeah!" said Constance with surprising enthusiasm. "If you escape, you'll figure out where we are, and then Mr. Benedict and everybody can come and rescue us!"

"And stop Mr. Curtain once and for all," Reynie added in.

Kate bit her lip. "But...but..."

Reynie put his hand comfortingly on hers. She looked at him and opened her mouth."If I'm not able to...Alright." The reluctant look in her eyes vanished, to be replaced by a flare of determination. "I'm going to try it. As long as you promise me that the next time I see you---I _will_ see you again---you'll all be in one piece and unhurt."

The others nodded.

Kate hugged each of them in turn, and knelt on the windowsill. She turned and beamed at them.

"And Kate," said Reynie, "Please do try to be careful."

Kate winked. "You know me."

And with that, she leaped out the window.

The others cried out and stumbled over one another trying to get to the window. By the time they actually got there, Kate was gone.

They stood in silence for a while, listening intently, not sure of what to do or say. Finally, Sticky spoke.

"How do you think she knows all of it?"

Reynie turned his head to look at him. "What?"

"Kate. She knew how to stop Crawlings from knocking her out."

Reynie shrugged. "I guess Milligan tells her that sort of thing. When they lived on that farm, Kate used to tell me about Milligan coming home in the dead of night, waking her up, and talking with her for hours on end."

Sticky looked at the ground for a moment, then turned back to the window. All three of them trained their ears once more.

That was when the distant booming and crashing began.


	6. A Great Escape

Once again, the spotlight moves away from Reynie. For a bit. This chapter was fun to write, and I hope it's fun to read as well.

Disclaimer: **See previous chapter.**

Chapter Six: A Great Escape

Kate winked at Reynie, and jumped out the window. She relished the fresh air as she fell, spinning and kicking off from the window ledge. She soared over the courtyard, and began to fall again, but then she grabbed onto the metal drainpipe she had been aiming for. Half climbing, half sliding down the drainpipe, she alighted gently onto the ground far below their fourth-story window.

There were eight doors to choose from---two on each wall of the dreary little courtyard---and each one had a small square window on it. Kate turned around and walked toward the one directly behind her. After peeking through the window to make sure no one was on the other side, she tried the door handle. It was locked.

Kate grimaced. It would be better if she did not have to pick any locks. She looked around. Should she try the other doors? Was it too much to hope for that one of them would be unlocked if the rest of them weren't? And yet it seemed foolish not to try all of them.

She proceeded to the one right next to the locked one. All clear. She tugged on the handle, but it was no use; this door was locked too. Not easily discouraged, Kate went to the next one, on a different wing of the building. Locked.

Starting to get frustrated, she put her hand on the door handle of the next one---and leaped back as if burned.

There were two men on the other side. One of them was a most familiar colossal figure with shining, perfectly coiffed brown hair that had been slicked back. The other was a less familiar swarthy man with extremely long legs. That was Hertz, the one who had called to Bludgins in the hall, the one who had attacked Ms. Plugg, and the one who was allegedly afraid of touching the Whisperer.

Hatred boiled up inside of Kate at the sight of the loathsome men; she wanted so badly to barge in there and punish them for all they had done to her and her friends. But she refrained. There was a bigger task at hand.

There were four doors left. The next one she tried, she peered thoroughly down the corridor beyond before attempting to open the door. To her astonishment and delight, it swung around, permitting her to step neatly inside and close it behind her.

She examined her surroundings. The corridor was all but identical to that which Bludgins had taken them through. There was no way to see around the corners. She took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. She had a long, dangerous journey ahead of her.

Kate was pleasantly surprised, actually. Despite the necessity for her to navigate her way through a complicated labyrinth of hallways, she met no one formidable (meaning that S.Q. had come along, but she had easily hidden from him). Eventually, she found a door that lead outside, and what she saw was unexpected.

Well, sort of. She wasn't sure if she was surprised or not. It was definitely not something to be put past Mr. Curtain to make his headquarters---or burrow, as she preferred to think of it---out of a place like this.

It was immediately apparent that they were in some kind of complex. Around the building, a huge expanse of land stretched on in all directions until it was cut off by a stone wall topped with razor-wire. The wall appeared to be in bad shape. There was one crumbling spot that even looked like someone could smash right through it with the Salamander---and she was positive the Salamander was around here somewhere.

The expanse of ground was littered with cranes and other such construction vehicles and materials. Everything was totally frozen; the renovation work or whatever the construction was intended for seemed to have been suspended. The sight of the abandoned construction site was slightly eerie, if not a little disconcerting.

Kate pressed herself against the closest wall. She remembered Hertz saying that he had been keeping watch on the roof: she didn't want to be discovered by a sentry before she had to be.

It was then that she noticed a shabby old garage, some thirty-eight and two-ninths yard away. She saw the tip of some bulky, metal mass poking out of it. There was no mistaking that blue-black color---this was the Salamander.

Glancing nervously about, Kate quickly deduced that the only way to get to the shed was to go out into the open for a considerable amount of time. _Well, Katie-Cat_, she told herself,_ it's now or never; lazing around here isn't gonna help anybody._

This was true enough. Taking another deep breath, she bolted for the shed.

Almost immediately, shouting rang out overhead. A Ten Man was calling down for his fellows. Kate sped up. She was only ten yards away when she drew up short.

This place seemed to have more doors than any other she had ever seen. Ten Men came pouring out from all directions, sneering at her. There were about eight of them, she thought. And they had left open a clear path to that temporary garage where the Salamander was.

She paused. What if they were so easily allowing her to get to it for a reason? She looked at the shed. Kate still had a clear memory of the last time she'd tried to drive the armored vehicle: McCracken had been hiding, waiting for her. Could it be that it was the case this time, too? Was she about to jump straight into his arms _again?_

No.

Kate clenched her fists. Of course she wasn't going to let that happen again. She wasn't going to take the chance.

One of the Ten Men called out provocatively to her, but she ignored him. Twisting around, she ran in the opposite direction, scaling the complex. She would run around the perimeter and scan the gargantuan wall for a hole or a weak spot. If she found none...well, she'd just have to use her imagination---it would hardly be the first time she had found herself in a situation where she had to improvise.

She ran and ran. And ran. The Ten Men smiled and smiled. And smiled. They all seemed perfectly relaxed, just sauntering along, not really chasing her. She was now at the back of the fortress: Nearby a huge metal beam hung from a crane, above a section of the wall that looked ready to give way. She looked around. The front gates (whose Ten Men guards were absent, having joined the chase) had the same razor wire on them as the rest of the wall. There was no heavy machinery near them.

She looked back at the crane. If she managed to work that bar over the weak point in the wall, might she be able to collapse it?

She kept looking back and forth between the crane and the front gates. All the while Ten Men closed in on her, drawing nearer and nearer, ceaselessly jeering. What would she do?

* * *

Mr. Curtain was very agitated. His euphoria at finally having those wretched children in his grasp was dwindling considerably. He scribbled endlessly at his desk, the Whisperer and its computers around him. He was in the process of modifying the Whisperer---his final work on it. Once it was sufficiently connected to his wheelchair, he would be unstoppable.

And he was having a block.

Just typical.

When McCracken came dashing into his study, he was not met by an amiable man.

"_What do you want?_" he shouted venomously.

"It's the girl," said McCracken in an apologetic tone, "She's, ah, escaped. Things are getting a bit out of hand."

Mr. Curtain nearly fell asleep. "WHAT? What has hap---oh, never mind! Just fix it. For crying out loud, she is a _child_! How hard can she possibly be to apprehend?"

McCracken made a respectful gesture and hurried off. Mr. Curtain brooded for a few moments. Then there was a boom outside that caused the whole building to shake slightly. The sound of tumbling rubble was audible even from here. Mr. Curtain knew that the girl---that wretched girl!---was demolishing the prison wall.

He made a hasty decision and a short phone call. Then he crumpled up the piece of paper in front of him and began working on a new, different one...

* * *

The remaining members of the Mysterious Benedict Society were feeling very anxious indeed when Mr. Curtain burst into the room. He was already wearing the gloves.

"You brats are irking me extremely."

They stared at him.

"Thanks to your own choices and actions, you now have two options. The first option is to experience most excruciating pain." He gestured menacingly with the gloves. "Your second option is to give me some answers, and then excruciate most experiencing pain."

Reynie hurriedly turned his giggle into a cough.

Mr. Curtain frowned in a muddled sort of way. "I mean---you answers---I mean---ugh!" He rubbed his temples. "You headaches are giving me a headache...Wait a minute..." He stomped his foot in frustration. "I'm getting an aspirins. I'm going to get an aspirate."

Then, to their amazement, he walked outside, closed and locked the door, and went away, leaving the key in the lock and his wheelchair in the room.

Less than thirty seconds later he was back. "This is mine!" he snarled, folding his arms and sitting petulantly in the wheelchair. "You are not to touch it!"

He yanked the key out of the lock and rocketed down the hall. This time he left the door wide open.

Sticky gave Reynie an extremely puzzled look. "It's too good to be true...Is it a trap?"

"I don't---Constance, what's wrong?" he said, getting alarmed now.

The four-year-old was swaying on the spot. She closed her eyes and fell to the floor, snoring gently.

Reynie shook her gingerly. Her eyelids fluttered. "R-Reynie? Ugh...I feel _horrendous_."

"Like when you tricked me into thinking I didn't like vanilla ice cream," breathed Sticky in wonder, comprehension dawning on his face.

Reynie's mouth fell open. "Constance, did you---? Did you _cause_ that?"

Constance nodded and smiled weakly, before plunging into another fitful doze.

Sticky picked her up. "Then let's go, before he comes back!"

Without any more hesitation, they ran from the room.

* * *

Taking the elevator was out of the question; what if they were cornered? Sticky was not too terribly happy about this, but he was determined not to show it. They were just dashing along yet another floor when Reynie skidded to a halt.

"This must be his office," he said quietly. Sticky looked at the door he was staring at. Through the small square window set into it, they could see a metal chair.

"Constance," said Reynie, "is anybody in there?"

Constance groaned spectacularly. "Wh-what? No, I don't...think...so."

Reynie shrugged at Sticky and turned the knob. The door creaked open.

They found themselves in an oval-shaped room with a desk at the opposite end of it, the walls lined with complex computers and machinery, and a shabby-looking chair in the center of the floor.

"What's he done to it?!" asked Reynie. He was disturbed by the slight indignation and concern in his own voice.

The Whisperer looked as if it were in the process of being disassembled. Great chunks of the metal had been taken apart, and a wire was half-detached from the chair's back.

Sticky made a face as Constance drooled on his shoulder. "Whatever he's doing to it, he can't be destroying it. The Whisperer's his life's work." He looked at the monitors. "I think these must be the Whisperer's computers."

"I have no clue what to do with them, but I feel like we should be doing something. Do you know anything about---?"

"I could try to dismantle or disable it," said Sticky. "If you take Constance."

Reynie obliged and went over to observe the papers on the desk, while Sticky paced round and round the computers, scratching his head and adjusting his glasses.

The first document on the stack was a calendar, turned to the current month of April. He could make out someone's handwriting on a cluster of dates. In blue pen, the boxes read: "Pressius to Benedict's house";"Power disrupt---Ten Men to retrieve Whisperer & chldrn";"Meeting with Rubicund"; and "Radio communications w/ Bndct---ransom chldrn."

Sticky was now typing swiftly on one of the computers.

Reynie decided to try again with Constance. Once she was awake, he ventured, "Constance? I think I know what all of this is about except for the next-to-last one. Who is this 'Rubicund?' They sound familiar, put I can't place the name. Do you know it?"

"Who cares?"

Reynie sighed. He moved on to the next document: it was a newspaper, with a small article circled clumsily in orange highlighter. The headline said: **BREAK-IN AT STONETOWN MAIN LIBRARY, NO DISCOVERED THEFTS OR VANDALISM**.

"What's this about---do you know?"

"What? Uh...yes. That's where I was hiding. Did you not get my message?"

"Message?"

"I sent you a message in my mind. It was just some weird number on a book at the library."

"The call number. I don't know, Constance, it might have reached me, but I was a bit preoccupied at the time. Busy getting kidnapped, you see."

He skipped the rest of the newspaper (just hype about the blackout) and proceeded to the next document. It was on plain white paper---no lines or anything---and it appeared to be some sort of list.

A very short sweep of the text told Reynie what the list was. There was a vertical line of the names: Bludgins, Crawlings, Garrotte, Hertz, McCracken, McCraig, Mortis, Payne, Phereson, and Sharpe. The names Mortis, Payne, and Phereson were crossed out.

Next to each name was a hyphen and a brief phrase that seemingly told the whereabouts and business of each Ten Man. All of them (save for the marked-out ones) read, "Staying at H.Q." The list was written in pencil, and the parts beside the names were heavily smudged from several past writings and erasings.

"Sticky," said Reynie, "Who is McCraig?"

Sticky, examining a bunch of colored cords, paused in his work. "No idea."

"Really? And what about Phereson, or Mortis, or Payne? Do you know about them?"

"Well, one of those Ten Men at the hotel in Holland was named Mortis. What is that?"

"I think it's a list of Ten Men."

"What's that underneath it?"

"I don't know, I haven't checked yet."

He moved the list to the side. Underneath was a large composition notebook with several dog-eared pages.

Feeling a strange sense of deja vu, he opened the book to its very middle. Written on the page was the following:

_02/17 _

_ Progress on the construction of the decoy Whisperer is moving along tremendously. The Ten Men are proving invaluable in the creation of such things. Pressius is as much of an idiot as ever, Bane even more so. My excitement at finally being reunited with my beloved Whisperer is substantial, as is my anticipation of the time when Benedict will finally become a help to me and my plans, rather than an irksome nuisance. The children themselves I am counting on to be as mediocre as the last time we met. It is most probably too much to hope for that they will maturely refrain from causing much trouble. But, I suppose, one cannot have everything they want in life (even though I am coming close!). _

Reynie was amazed that Mr. Curtain would risk having a new journal, especially considering what befell his last one. He flipped forward a couple of pages. This entry read:

_03/30 _

_ Final preparatory measures are being seen through regarding my plans. I have great expectations for the next few days. The operations of the city's power failure I predict to run perfectly smoothly. On the note of the children: if my original intention (having the Ten Men deliver them from Benedict's household) does not work as foreseen, we need to have a Plan B. The meddling youths would go to practically any lengths to interfere with my actions; must find the best way to work this trivial and childish desire to my own advantage. _

"Well, _that's_ pleasant," Reynie muttered, mostly to himself. He snapped the book closed and resisted the temptation of rifling through the entire booklet; there would be time for that. At least, he hoped there would.

Setting the journal aside, he peered at the last items---little bits of paper that resembled flash cards. Mr. Curtain had inscribed miniscule writing on them, and the messages themselves formed curious little phrases that made little or no sense.

Reynie hated to be pushy, but Sticky was starting to become obviously distracted from his task. "What are those things?" he inquired.

"I'm not sure just yet. Shouldn't you be getting back to the computers?"

"Oh! Yes, sorry..."

Reynie started to gather up all the cards. Right after tucking them into his pockets, he noticed one of them off to the side, away from the others, at the very edge of the desk. There was that name again---"Rubicund..." He was just reaching for Mr. Curtain's second journal when he noticed Constance, who had---up until now---been moaning groggily in his lap.

She was staring at Sticky with a concentration so intense it made his spine tingle.

"Sticky!" she cried, her eyes widening. "Get away from there! There's a self-destruct program!"

Reynie jumped up and snatched the journal. With Constance clinging to his shoulders, he flew to the door and pulled Sticky, with whom the message hadn't even sunk in, behind him. Accomplishing all this in a single panicked flurry of movement, he wrenched on the door handle and---

BANG.


	7. To Hide Out

Okay, I'm just going to give up on trying to make short chapters. Thanks for the multifarious reviews this story has been given so far (hint, hint) and enjoy the chapter.

Disclaimer: **Have a look at Chapter Two.**

Chapter Seven: To Hide Out

"What _happened _to you guys?"

"Wha...what?" said Reynie groggily.

Kate's face swam above him. "What the heck has been going on---how did you escape?"

He was partially lying on his back, partially sitting against the wall. A few blinks told him that he was in the hallway outside Mr. Curtain's workspace. The door, having been blasted open, was slightly crooked on its hinges directly in front of him. Kate was bent over him.

"Are you okay?" she asked. Her voice sounded choked.

"Y-yeah. Where are Sticky and Constance?"

Kate gestured toward them. Sticky's normally light-brown skin was slightly ashen, and there were black spots on Constance's red raincoat.

"How did the room explode?" said Kate.

"What?" Reynie stood up, and immediately regretted it. Every part of him ached. He felt slightly burned. His head was throbbing, too. He put his hand to it gingerly and felt a massive knot.

"I think you hit your head against the wall," said Kate apologetically. "That---and the shock---must have caused you to pass out."

He looked inside the room, and his stomach contracted.

All around the room, smoking monitors lay with broken glass screens. Reynie saw a melted keyboard whose keys had left it. Many keys from other keyboards were scattered about the floor. The tables, floor, and walls were blackened. But the real clincher was the fact that the monitors and keyboards were totally annihilated, but the essential parts of the computers themselves were intact. Sure, they were burnt along the edges, but on the whole they were untarnished.

"But...how...? That's---not..._possible_!"

"Neither is noise cancellation for a giant, armored vehicle," said Sticky bitterly, brushing off his clothes. "Or gloves that cause torturous pain with a single touch. Or a chair that can control people's minds."

Kate sniffed. Reynie looked at her. She looked just about ready to cry. However, she wasn't even glancing at the computers; she had eyes only for her precious bucket.

It was lying sadly in the very middle of the floor, hopelessly bent out of shape and melting slightly. It was hard to believe that it had once been fire-engine red. There was no sign of the motley collection of tools that had their home in this bucket (though a fragment of something that looked like part of a pouch from her bucket was flaming in a corner). Her confiscated bucket had been kept in this room, and had been destroyed along with almost everything else when they had tampered with the computers.

"Come on," said Sticky, looking anxiously at Kate. "Let's get out of here. The damage is done."

They sat down, exhausted, in the hallway. "Let's hear your story first, Kate," said Reynie, once she had wiped her eyes.

"Okay. Well, I know that we're in some kind of complex. The river is right outside, and I think we're on an island."

"Good grief!" said Sticky, who had a single crack on one lens of his spectacles. "This is the third island he's made into his base. Sorry, continue."

"Once I got outside, I saw a bunch of machinery and materials, earth movers and all that. I think whatever this place is, it's being---well, it _used_ to be, anyway---demolished or renovated. There was a part of the wall---there's this huge wall surrounding the building with razor-wire over the top of it---this part of the wall that looked ready to crumble, and I thought maybe if I drove the Salamander straight into it---"

"Wait, wait. Back up," said Reynie. "You were driving the Salamander?"

"No. I thought maybe I could try to, but then I remembered how McCracken took me by surprise the last time I tried to do that, so I bypassed it. And I was right, wasn't I? He came running out of the garage a few minutes later.

"Anyway, I spotted a huge crane beside that section of the wall, and there was a big heavy metal bar hanging from it. I hopped in the cabin and tried to maneuver the bar over the wall.

"So you could drop it and crush the weak part," said Sticky, nodding in understanding.

"Right. But there was something wrong with the crane, I couldn't control it properly. It was all I could do to keep the bar from crushing me and the Ten Men. Actually, it did get the wall. Rubble and debris went flying, and the razor-wire came down on top of me."

For the first time because of all the distraction, Reynie noticed the numerous miniscule cuts and slashes on Kate's arms and face. He should never have let her go alone.

"I managed to get untangled, but the Ten Men were really coming down hard on me now. I only just got away."

They were silent for a few moments, taking in Kate's tale. After a while, she said, "So, uh, what about you guys? What happened to you?"

Reynie took a deep breath and began to tell Kate their own story. When he got to the part about Constance somehow developing the power to confuse people, or make them dizzy or sleepy or whatever she had done, Kate turned to look at the snoring toddler with an expression of growing wonder.

"So we ran down here," Reynie continued, "and we found the door to Mr. Curtain's room. We saw that the Whisperer was in there---"

"The Whisperer?" Kate interjected. "I didn't see the Whisperer. Just its computers."

Reynie frowned. He got up and looked back in the room, which was smoking. Sure enough, though he hadn't noticed it before, there was no metal chair, no colored helmets. He must be really distressed; he was usually very observant.

"I wonder why Mr. Curtain would make the computers indestructible, but not the Whisperer itself? They're useless without one another, right?"

Kate shook her head. "I...don't know."

There was no point in discussing this new revelation: the facts were clear enough, even if they didn't make any sense. So, Reynie continued with his story.

"Sticky set to work trying to wreck the computers, while I looked through the papers on Curtain's desk. There was a calendar, a bunch of, erm, cards, and a list of Ten Men.

"A _list_? Surely Mr. Curtain isn't so frazzled so as not to remember how many Ten Men there are."

"Actually, that's easy. There are ten."

"Ten? But I only count..." She started to tick them off on her fingers.

"We haven't met all of them, you know."

"Thank goodness for that," said Sticky quietly.

Reynie kept talking. "Three of them were crossed out, and I figure that must mean they've been apprehended and put in jail. I know for a fact that a Ten Man named Mortis was at that hotel in Thernbaakagen, and his name was marked out."

Sticky frowned. "That's odd. One of the Ten Men at Mr. Benedict's house was from the hotel. So _he_ can't have been imprisoned."

Kate shrugged. "Maybe he managed to ditch the police, and the other one wasn't so lucky."

"Maybe," said Reynie. "Back to the list, the other names were Payne, Phereson and McCraig."

"Well, I can only tell you about McCraig."

"You can?"

"Oh yes. Back at the Institute, when I went to spy on Mr. Curtain."

"The time you swam in the harbor," said Sticky, grinning at the memory.

"Yep. There was a Ten Man---sorry, a Recruiter---in the foyer, and his partner said his name was McCraig."

Reynie was about to tell them about the journal (what happened to it, he couldn't guess, because it had been nowhere in sight when he woke up) when two things happened simultaneously. Two very, very bad things.

Both things caused them to jump. First of all, the smoke from the explosion caused the fire alarm to go off, and the sprinklers to start running. Secondly, S.Q. Pedalian came bounding around a corner, radio in hand and eyes fixed on the children.

"There you are!" he said, obviously relieved. Then the sprinklers came on and he was so startled he tripped.

Sticky looked at Reynie. "We were so stupid! We should have known that explosion would attract---"

He was cut off when Kate seized both their arms and hauled them down the corridor. Somehow, miraculously, she had slung Constance over her back in an instant and started to run.

They were flying along, but they could have gone faster if the boys could have gotten their bearings. They heard shouting behind them just as they rounded a corner, and Reynie looked back. S.Q. had gotten up and was proceeding to trip again, this time on the slippery water.

"Kate!" Sticky yelled. "Where are we going?"

"Not exactly sure at present," Kate replied calmly.

"We can't take the stairs," panted Reynie. "They'd overrun us in a second!"

"But the elevator is back the way we came!"

Kate snorted. "Not a problem."

"What are you---"

"Okay, listen. I'll deal with S.Q. As soon as you can, run like the wind for the elevator, and I promise I'll catch up with you before the doors slide shut."

Reynie and Sticky didn't have time to answer. Kate thrust Constance into Reynie's hands, and leaped around the corner.

The boys stared down the corridor. Kate was literally bouncing off the walls, though in a graceful manner. S.Q. spun on the spot.

"Kate, stop!" he cried. "You might get hur---oof!"

S.Q. fell over.

Kate winced. "Sorry!"

"Get down! Stop it!" he cried as she used his shoulders as a springboard, jumping into the air again.

S.Q. fell over.

He stood up again and shook his head; water flew everywhere. Kate did a twirl and twisted, catlike, around him. He was plainly getting very, very dizzy.

S.Q. fell over.

This time he slid halfway into an open door. Kate pounced on the door and slammed it shut. Unfortunately it locked from the inside, so her locking it would only hold him off for a fraction of a second.

"Now!" Reynie shouted as water dripped from the end of his nose. He and Sticky tore down the corridor and skidded to a shaky halt before the elevator. Sticky feverishly pushed the button repeatedly until the doors opened. The two of them---and Constance---dashed inside.

They heard S.Q. scrabbling at the handle. The poor dimwit hadn't realized that he could unlock the door from the inside yet. Kate paused only long enough to flash an apologetic look through the square window, and then the next thing the boys knew, she was in the elevator with them pressing the close button.

The doors slid shut just as more footsteps and voices burst into the hallways outside. They didn't plan to stick around long.

"Okay, what floor?" asked Kate. "_Quick!_"

"Um...uh..." Sticky looked frantically at the buttons.

"The roof!" exclaimed Reynie, slamming his fist down on the topmost button.

* * *

They were wet. Wet. Wet, wet, wet. Their clothes were sopping, their hair was flat (in everyone's case but Sticky, of course), and their faces and hands dripped. There was also a cruelly chilly breeze on the roof.

"Well, now what?" said Kate, sounding much more like Constance than her usual cheery self. She blew her wet hair out of her face dejectedly.

"Well, er, we...got this far, didn't we? So now we just have to, um..."

"Not be caught and killed," Sticky finished for him.

"Right."

"And we'll do that _by_...?"

Reynie frowned. "You know, it's not always just up to me to come up with all the plans around here. I don't have all the answers all the time, you can't expect me to."

"_I don't exp_---" Kate stopped herself. Now that she thought about it, what Reynie said was pretty true. "I'm sorry. I guess you're right. We shouldn't be so dependent on you for our plans, should we? You're not responsible for all of us. We're all responsible for each other, right?"

Sticky nodded.

"You don't have to do everything for us, and you don't have to feel accountable if we mess up. Got it?"

"Got it," said Reynie.

"Got it," said Sticky.

"Eurgh...guhg," said Constance.

"We can't just stay right here forever, though," Sticky said nervously. "I mean, they're bound to check here eventually."

"S.Q. didn't even know where we went, so we've got some time," said Reynie.

"Hold on," said Kate. She walked around behind the elevator, furrowing her brow and rubbing her chin the way Reynie often did.

Reynie himself was looking around. Other than the elevator and several air-conditioning units, the roof was completely bare. No hiding places. No escape routes.

Sticky peered over the side of the roof, at the wall surrounding the building, and at Stonetown River flowing beyond it. "By the look of it," he murmured, half to himself, "I think we're in a real prison. And the only ones being renovated are...yes. Yes, I think I know where we are!"

_Ding._

They turned around. Kate was standing next to the open elevator doors. "Well, what are you waiting for?" she called. "Are you coming, or not?"

"Back into the elevator?" said Sticky skeptically.

"Just trust me---I know what I'm doing."

They did trust Kate. They filed back inside, and Kate pulled out her Swiss Army knife. Before she had even flipped it open, however, the elevator lurched downward.

"Oh, no. Oh no, oh no, oh _no_." Sticky was trembling so much he couldn't even polish his cracked spectacles.

"What do we do?" Reynie said frantically to Kate, but Kate was already doing it. She undid the panel in the ceiling (she was now tall enough to do so without standing on her bucket, thank goodness) even faster than she had in the secret passage at the Institute. The three of them clambered up on top of the elevator---no small feat while it was still moving---and replaced the panel a fraction of a second before two Ten Men stepped into the elevator. If they had been a single floor higher, there would have been no way the children would have made it in time.

Simultaneously, they held up their forefingers to their lips. One of the Ten Men pressed a button, and the elevator began to rise.

"These little ducks are more trouble than they're worth," complained the Ten Man who had pressed the button, as they both set down their briefcases. "That alarm is making my eardrums burst, and I'm soaked to the bone. I don't see why Mr. Curtain doesn't just do away with three of them, or at least brainsweep them. This job would be a lot easier. He really only needs one of them, at any rate. And the most low-maintenance is the tiny one, and she's also the most valuable."

The other one snorted. "Low-maintenance?" They recognized Sharpe's voice. "You haven't heard her whining. It took _all_ my willpower not to just shock the life out of her in the van. It's a good thing she finally went to sleep on the way."

Reynie looked up nervously. They were inching very close to the gears at the top of the shaft. A very unpleasant thought occurred to him: if these Ten Men were getting off at the roof, the children would be forced up into the mechanism that caused the elevator to move. And if that happened while the device was still running...his stomach churned with dread.

"What floor are we getting off at, Bludgins?" asked Sharpe from below.

"Top," grunted his partner.

Reynie wasn't sure if he _had_ a stomach anymore.

They were very close to the gears now. Sticky and Kate had realized what was happening at this point, and their faces were white, their eyes round.

All three of them were crouching, trying to stay as far from the mechanism as possible. But once the elevator reached high enough, it would be useless to stay low.

Abruptly, the elevator stopped. The doors _ding_'d open below them, and the Ten Men left.

Reynie closed his eyes, breathing heavily. When Bludgins had said "top," he'd meant the highest floor---not the roof.

Sticky's voice sounded extremely shaky. "L-l-look," he stammered, pointing at a spot on the wall of the shaft. The other two turned around. There was a rectangular opening that lead into some sort of small chamber.

Without hesitation (they'd seen enough of this elevator shaft), they squeezed through. It was their best bet at a successful hiding place, especially if all the Ten Men were looking for them. The hole was rather small, but they made it through. Sticky managed it because he was so skinny, Constance because she was so little, and Kate because she was...well, she was Kate. Reynie, however, got stuck on the way. Kate had to tug him in while Sticky sniggered.

Before long they were all sniggering; they'd had precious little to laugh about for days.

The children were in a tiny room with a large metal object that looked as though it could be a water heater. There were pipes everywhere. The floor was wooden and dusty, and spiders and other unpleasant things that crawled flitted away when they sat down. Cobwebs hung from the low ceiling.

"Sticky," Reynie began, once they had all stopped chortling, "You said you---"

"Uuuhhh..."

They looked down. Constance was coming awake. "What happened?" She wrinkled her nose. "What the heck _is_ this place? Eeeww, it's all icky and dusty and gross!"

"Well, we're stuck with it for now, Connie-girl," smiled Kate. "Anyway, you keep moldy corn dogs in your dresser."

"Don't call me Conn---!"

"Sticky, back on the roof, you said you knew where we are," said Reynie quickly. He was trying to avoid a fight. "Can you tell us?"

Sticky nodded. "Kate said the building was a complex. And out there, I saw big walls with razor wire and---most importantly---guard towers. That suggests that we're in---"

"---a prison," said Sticky and Reynie together.

Kate grinned. "An actual prison? How typical. Well, we know that Mr. Curtain thinks highly of us, if he's going to that much trouble to keep us trapped."

"I don't think that's the only reason he's using it," Sticky said wisely. "It makes sense, when you look at it strategically. Even more so when you figure out the location."

"What's the location?" asked Constance.

"Well, there are two prisons that had been slated for major renovation, and then abandoned---Solipse Prison and Third Island Prison. I'm sure we're in Third Island, though, because it's the only one on an island by the widest part of Stonetown River. That's what makes it good strategy: The area is on a defensible position, and he can easily escape on the Salamander with his whole crew of thugs, plus prisoners." His voice sounded sour now.

"Well," said Kate, leaning back, "If this is all it takes to hide out from the Ten Men, Curtain's losing his touch."


	8. Rendezvous Riddles & Retaliation Rhymes

**PLEASE READ!** I'm so sorry to those of you who read this chapter before I edited it and were confused; Somehow, the "peculiar string of letters" got lost in the process of uploading chapter eight. I've added it in and it should work this time, so if this isn't your first time reading R.R.A.R.R., reread it and it will all make sense. Also, there were some punctuation issues in previous chapters - mainly due to me trying to type a full dash as three hyphens and the computer reading it as one hyphen.**  
**

Chapter Eight: Rendezvous Riddles & Retaliatory Rhymes

They had escaped with their lives. They were drying off. The smoke alarm had stopped. All well and good, but there were still issues to take care of. Namely, the only documents Reynie had managed to save from the explosions were the seven curious bits of paper.

"I'm not sure what they are," Reynie said, laying out the little cards so that all four of them could see. "Riddles, or codes of some sort."

"But why would Mr. Curtain write riddles?" asked Constance irritably.

Reynie fought to keep his face even. "I don't know, Constance. That's what we're trying to find _out_."

"Besides," Kate chimed in, "We don't even know Mr. Curtain _wrote_ these at all. He might have received them."

"Oh yes we do," said Sticky, staring hard at the paper. "That's his handwriting alright; I remember from his old journal."

"So these codes must be for his Ten Men, or some other odious people working for Mr. Curtain," Reynie reasoned.

"You think so?"

"Oh, yes. For one, most of them start out with 'Gentlemen,'."

Kate snorted. "_Gentle_..."

"For another, they all mention locations, as far as I can - "

"Yes!" Sticky cried, pointing excitedly at one of the cards. "Look at that word, there."

Constance leaned in. "Renn-dezz-vouse?" she said disgustedly.

"No, _ron_-day-voo! It means a place to meet."

"So Reynie was right," Kate said conclusively, and clapped Reynie on the back.

Reynie winced, but smiled. "We still need to figure out what the puzzles _mean_, and why there are so many of them."

They were all scratching their heads over the strange pieces of card when a new thought occurred to Reynie.

"Hey..." he voiced, "What if he meant to distribute these _between_ the Ten Men? There are seven of them, right?"

"Yeah," said Kate promptly.

"And according to that list I found in Mr. Curtain's office, exactly seven Ten Men are still at large: McCracken, McCraig, Crawlings, Sharpe, Garrotte, Bludgins, and, um..."

"Hertz," Sticky offered.

"Right. Hertz. My point is, Mr. Curtain is obsessed with caution, security, and above all, control. He'd like to think himself far superior to his men, manipulating them like pawns. What if he gave them all cards, only one of which was correct, so they wouldn't know which instructions to follow until the time came?"

"If that's true, then how do we know which one's the right one?" said Constance in a testy voice (it was all seeming pretty hopeless to her).

Reynie shrugged. "Maybe the puzzles will offer some sort of helpful clue."

Constance picked up one of the cards. "This one was set apart from the others, wasn't it, Reynie?"

Reynie nodded, and Sticky said "Yes. I remember. You were scooping them up, and you nearly missed that one." Silently marveling at how observant Sticky could be when he was supposed to be sabotaging a highly advanced computer, Reynie nodded again.

The others let Kate see it. It must have been scrawled in a hurry, because there was a huge blot in the middle of the word "search" - the first word in the message - that indicated a lettering mistake had been scratched out. It now read "Sea rch."

"How can we be positive this is the correct riddle?" Sticky asked nervously, peering at it through his spectacles.

"What other leads do we have?" challenged Kate.

"Actually, I'm sure this is the one," said Reynie thoughtfully. "That name, Rubicund, was also on the calendar and in...er, another document." It would take too long if he mentioned the journal; they would be fascinated, questions would be asked, a waste of time.

"Rubicund?" said Kate excitedly. "But, that must be it! Remember in the hall, when Hertz was whispering to Bludgins? We thought he said 'ruby', but it must have been 'Rubicund'."

They looked at her. "What would we do without you?"

Kate blushed.

_

* * *

Gentlemen,_

_Search the following location for a man named Rubicund. You will contact your employer, ask the man a certain question, and relay his answer to your employer. If he answers correctly, you know what to do. If he does not, you also know what to do._

**_D.t.t.z.K.x.w.o.e.x.f.r.Q.z.Z.i.t.K.x.o.f.l.G.y.Z.i.t.G.s.r.G.s.s.o.C.g.n.s.t.L.z.t.t.s.d.q.a.o.f.u.E.g.d.h.q.f.n.G.f.Y.q.x.s.l.H.k.q.o.k.o.t._**

The children read this peculiar string of letters several times, and in several different ways, but never wrung anything more meaningful out of them. It didn't help that nerve-racking thumps and footsteps would sound above and below their hiding place from time to time, as well as the elevator frequently sliding along just outside the rectangular hole that was their only entrance or exit.

"I...give...UP!" Constance moaned, flopping onto her back. "There's no _way_ we can crack this code without some sort of guide. We're hopeless!"

"Not necessarily..." said Sticky, lost in thought. "I've read about some people being able to solve things like this using a special method. I think the first step is to find two-or-three-letter words."

"But it's just a hodgepodge!" Kate exclaimed.

"The cap - ow!" Reynie, jumping to his feet with excitement, accidentally banged his head on a pipe.

"The capital letters," he finished more quietly. "At first I thought they were separate symbols, but they must mean the first letter of a word."

"How do you know it doesn't mean the last letter of a word?"

"Because the message starts out with a capital, and ends with a lowercase.

"Oh," said Kate, feeling a bit foolish.

"So the third word is only two letters." Sticky put in.

"Well, I can think of lots of two-letter words," said Kate. "'To','an','so','of','as','it','he'..."

"Or she," Constance suggested.

"'She' is not a word with two letters. It has three."

"So? You said 'he'. You have to say she, too."

Kate put a hand to her head.

"We won't get anywhere with that unless we know what some of the letters are," interrupted Reynie.

"Well," Sticky mused, "'e' is the most common letter of the alphabet. Everyone knows that-no?" He looked incredulously at Kate, who looked back with a sheepish expression."Okay. It is."

"So what's the most common letter in the message?" said Constance, glaring at the card as if she mortally hated it.

"Looks like it's between 's' and 't'," replied Kate.

"Let's count," Reynie said.

There were eight 't's and six 's's.

"Well, I guess we know which one's 'e'," said Kate happily.

"It's not all going to be that easy," said Reynie, with less breeziness in his voice than Kate.

This was not strictly true, however. Soon they knew the letters 'm','t','h','a','s', and 'l' along with 'e'. So far, they had deciphered:

_M.E.E.T. ?.?.?.?.?.?.?.?. A.T. T.H.E. ?.?.?.?.S. ?.?. T.H.E. ?.L.?. ?.L.L.?. ?.?.?.L.E. S.T.E.E.L.M.A.?.?.?.?. ?.?.M?A?.?. ?.?. ?.A?.L.S. ?.?.A?.?.?.E_

"Well," said Sticky, "That eleventh word is either 'steelmaking' or 'steelmakers'."

"No," said Constance. "It can't be 'steelmakers'. We already know the code letter for 's'."

"Oh. Right."

"Kate filled in "K - I - N - G" on the end of the word with a pencil she had found conveniently lying abandoned behind the water heater.

"Look," Reynie said, his hand frozen on his chin in mid-rub. "That also gives us an 'i' and an 'n' in the second word."

"What was that man's name that they're going to meet?" asked Kate.

Sticky looked at her. "Rubicund...OH! 'Meet Rubicund'!"

Their translation now read:

_M.E.E.T. R.U.B.I.C.U.N.D. A.T. T.H.E. R.U.I.N.S. ?.?. THE ?.L.D. ?.L.L.I. ?.?.?.L.E. S.T.E.E.L.M.A.K.I.N.G. C.?.M.?.A.N.?. ?.N. ?.A.U.L.S. ?.R.A.I.R.I.E._

"That blank in the last word has got to be a 'p'," Kate observed. "Which means that _that_ word - " - she pointed to it - " - must be 'company'."

"Great!" said Constance sarcastically. "Now we only need to figure out ten more letters!"

"No," Reynie corrected, "'Company' gives us 'o' and 'y', which narrow it down to, actually, just two."

Reynie saw Sticky mouth the words, 'Faul's Prairie.' "That's it!" he exclaimed, throwing his arms around Sticky and filling in the letter 'f'. "Only that left," he said, pointing to the word, '?OYLE'.

"That one's easy," said Sticky. "It's 'Voyle'."

This time, _everyone_ hugged him.

_

* * *

MEET RUBICUND AT THE RUINS OF THE OLD OLLI VOYLE STEELMAKING COMPANY ON FAUL'S PRAIRIE._

Despite not knowing quite what the directions meant, the children couldn't help but feel proud of their accomplishment.

Holding back her grin, Kate said, "I've never heard of Old Olli Voyle Steelmaking Co."

"It's just called Olli Voyle," Sticky explained. "But it literally is old. It closed down years ago, and they never bothered to do anything with the building, so now it's crumbling."

"Like a ghost town," Reynie breathed, deep in thought.

Sticky nodded. "Exactly. It's on Faul's Prairie, which is..." His eyes widened behind his cracked glasses. "Which is only a mile from Mr. Benedict's house!"

Everyone was silent for a split second. Then, they all let out hushed but exuberant cries and beamed at one another.

"Just think!" whispered Kate ecstatically. "If we hadn't found this, we'd still be trapped here!"

"We _are_ still trapped here," Reynie reminded her.

"Well, yeah, but we won't be for long. _And_," she added proudly, "We figured it out all by ourselves, with everyone pitching in. Well," she added again, with a less-than-subtle glance at Constance, "_Most_ everyone."

Constance jumped to her feet. It didn't take psychic powers to figure out Kate's implied meaning. "Oh, yeah? So you think I didn't help solve that dumb, useless message, huh? Huh?

"_Some steel in a boil,_

_And some guy named Voyle,_

_And you say that I didn't help?_

_Some place that is old,_

_And covered in mold,_

_And you had to give off a yelp!_

_You claim I'm no use,_

_An eggless gold goose,_

_You're saying that _I_ am to blame?_

_You think you're so _mean_,_

_Miss Weather Machine,_

_You and your STUPID NICKNAME!"_

Kate actually smirked. "Oh, yeah? Well, just listen to _this!_

"_You've insulted me, so at long last it's time_

_To recite my new retaliatory rhyme,_

_So listen up, Constance,_

_No more remonstrance!_

I _put up with _your _flutt all the time._

_I can see how you flare your eyes,_

_See how you stomp your feet._

_Now listen up, Constance,_

_No more remonstrace!_

_You're angry 'cause you just got beat."_

Constance's jaw dropped. She spluttered indignantly. Then she turned her eyes downward and said, "'Flutt'."

"'Flutt', yourself."

"No. In your 'poem' you used the word, 'flutt'. That's not even a word."

Kate sighed theatrically. "There's just no winning with you, Constance, is there?"

"Nope," said Reynie, grinning. "Nothing but remonstrance."


	9. Of Shafts, Ducts, and Acrobatics

NEVER AGAIN. I will never again try to write good poetry for an MBS fanfic. I mean, I guess my poem in the last chapter was okay, but nowhere near up to Constance's level. I'll leave that to some more talented poets out there with their own stories. Anyway, prepare yourselves for the build-up chapters to the coming climax.

Disclaimer: **Why bother?**

Chapter Nine: Of Shafts, Ducts, and Acrobatics

Their escape attempt would be tricky - not to mention dangerous.

Because in order to get away they would need to operate on top of the (most likely moving) elevator, they had to plan their course of action extremely carefully beforehand. Reynie kept worrying he'd overlooked something, thinking there must be a fatal flaw in their strategy. Sticky kept starting to polish his spectacles, then checking himself and wiping perspiration off his brow instead. Constance kept groaning and burying her face in her hands, certain that they were going to fail. Kate kept bouncing up and down, because the prospect of the escape filled her with excitement and adrenaline.

"Alright," said Reynie for the fifteenth time, "So we're going to dash out there as soon as the elevator stops just below the hole - "

"And what if it never does?" said Constance for the fourteenth time.

"We'll just have to hope we get lucky," answered Sticky for the thirteenth time.

"Back to the plan," Kate said for the twelfth time. "I'll jump up to the pair of doors directly across from us and pry them open."

"With your Army knife," Reynie added for the eleventh time.

"Exactly. With my Army knife."

"And then," said Sticky for the tenth time, "We'll make sure the coast is clear - "

For the ninth time, Constance interrupted and finished for him. " - And run out onto the roof."

"Right," Reynie punctuated for the eighth time.

For the seventh time, Constance gave him a grumpy look for interrupting her. "_Next_, we'll head down the stairs with Kate leading us and watching out for Ten Men."

"And then we make our way to the Salamander and wait for the Ten Men _while hiding in the storage chamber_," Kate finished for the sixth time. She spoke the last part clearly and deliberately because she had forgotten it five times already.

"Now," Reynie fretted for the fourth time, "Is there anything we've overlooked?"

"I don't think so," said Sticky for the third time.

"Yes, there is," Constance said ominously.

They looked at her. It was the second time she'd said that.

"_What_ did we forget?" asked Kate.

"I don't know. But I can tell we've forgotten something. I just can."

Once again, they all racked their brains. For the first time, Kate started to remember something she hadn't before. However, she couldn't dwell on this because just then, the elevator started to move.

It stopped right below the rectangular opening.

Everyone turned to Kate. "Go!"

Kate didn't need to be told twice. She rolled through the tiny exit so fast she might have been a snake. Before the others had blinked, she was scrabbling at the doors at the other side of the shaft.

Sticky went through next. He struggled a bit, but came out lightly on top of the cab. Kate had now slit the doors open and was pulling them apart with her hands. Sticky looked anxiously onto the roof.

His heart skipped two beats.

A pair of Ten Men stood yards away. One of them noticed Kate and tugged on his partner's arm. Kate snapped the doors closed at the same moment and hopped down onto the cab with Sticky. Her eyes were wide.

Constance was already halfway through the opening. Just then, the elevator started to move upward. If Reynie hadn't pulled her in at the last second, her hands, at least, would have been chopped off.

The elevator stopped directly in front of them. The tiny room grew darker. Reynie waited, his heart pounding, for the sound of his friends being...churned up...by the gears above. But, thankfully, no gut-wrenching grinding noises came. He didn't know how, but he thought they survived.

The muffled voice of a Ten Man emanated from the cab in front of them. "Could've sworn I saw something...heard it, too...the doors opening by themselves...something yellow...must've been the clouds or something..."

_Ding._ The doors were closing. The Ten Men weren't using the elevator.

"N-now what?" asked Constance. Her entire body was shaking.

"I...I guess we wait for the elevator to move down."

"But...but how long will that t-t-t-t-take?"

"I don't know, Constance. I don't know."

* * *

Outside, Sticky and Kate had nearly been diced up by the pulley mechanism. At the last minute, they leaped off the cab, Kate latching on to the parallel rope and hanging there like a monkey while Sticky grabbed it with his hands and nose, pressing his feet firmly to the side of the cab until his body was horizontal.

"I w-wish I could do that like you," he called weakly to Kate.

"Hey! Your way was much more interesting!"

"If you say so."

They didn't have to wait long for the elevator to move. It suddenly slid downwards, and Reynie jumped out as it did so, landing loudly on the metal top of the cab. Unfortunately, he lost his grip on Constance. She was left in the rectangular tunnel.

"Hey!" she screamed. "You dipstick!"

"Sorry! We'll get you, don't worry!" He tried to sound reassuring and not scared out of his wits. Constance, the amazing mind-reading four-year-old, wasn't fooled.

The elevator stopped just long enough to admit a couple of Ten Men, then continued to slide down. For the duration of the ride, Kate climbed in place so that she didn't get pulled up as the elevator cab moved down.

They could now see the machine at the bottom of the long shaft: More pulleys and a cylindrical motor.

"Well," called Reynie dryly, "We sure didn't plan for _this_."

Sticky, who had jumped back on top of the cab as it moved with Reynie, laughed feebly. He leaned over to look at Kate and the other end of the pulley. It was a very long way down. His glasses slipped down the end of his nose and nearly fell, but he caught them.

"OH!" Kate's eyebrows shot up. "_Plans_. Hold on."

She scrambled down the steel rope and stood on top of the motor. It was about the size of a medium-size dining table. She pulled a heavily crumpled, rolled, and folded paper out of her back pocket. "I found these inside that crane. They're schematics of the building. Ventilation, piping, and everything."

The other two gawked at her. "You might have mentioned that a teensy bit earlier," said Reynie exasperatedly.

"Sorry. I forgot. I guess that's what Constance was talking about. She could tell I forgot something, but she couldn't see what it was."

"How do you forget something like that?"

"Hey, I was surrounded by Ten Men trying to capture me!" she yelled defensively.

"Did someone say my name?" Constance shouted down from above.

"Never mind," called Sticky.

"Okay, so now what?" said Reynie. "Do we look at the blueprints to see if there are any useful passages?"

"I guess so." Kate responded.

"So, I'll c-climb down, and..." he trailed off once the realization hit him of what he had to attempt.

Kate looked up expectantly. "Well? Are you coming or what?"

"Sure, it's j-just that..."

"Don't worry, I'll catch you if you fall."

Reynie wasn't altogether convinced, but there was no point in beating around the bush. He slipped off his shoes, pulled his socks off of his feet and onto his hands.

Sticky was puzzled. "Why are you doing that?"

"So I don't hurt my hands too badly on the cable," said Reynie, sliding his feet back into his loosely-tied tennis shoes.

"Oh. Good idea," Sticky said, following Reynie's example.

"Well...Here goes nothing."

Reynie reached out for the parallel steel rope. As soon as his hands tightened around it his feet slipped. For a second he swung by his hands, and then his feet too gained a grip on the rope.

He closed his eyes and exhaled. This was simple. He had two options: succeed in climbing down the steel rope by some miracle, or fall to his death. He swallowed hard. He just had to remember the techniques Kate had taught him about rope-climbing. What was it? Kate had never told him anything about rope climbing. Oh, well. He'd just have to wing it.

Reynie held the steel rope just below his neck. It was ten times harder due to his slick and sweaty palms. He was pinching it between his feet, so as to have somewhat of an anchor. He loosened the pressure with his feet ever so slightly and allowed himself to move down while his hands moved up. Then he moved his hands back to his chest and repeated the process. Not once did he open his eyes until, incredibly, he touched down on top of the motor, with Kate holding on to steady him.

"Nice job," she said with approval. "Now it's your turn, Sticky!"

Sticky didn't look too happy that it was his turn.

He was almost relieved when the elevator started up again; he'd gotten a reprieve. Sort of. His friends, so very far below, were shouting and gesturing, but he couldn't hear them over the machine. Then, with a start, he realized what they wanted him to do.

He jumped.

Latching onto the cable, he simply held on tightly while the pulley moved him down. This was not as easy as it looked, however. His bony arms trembled with the effort of holding on.

Down below, Reynie tripped. This happened because the motor was rotating to turn the gears. Unlike Kate, he was not exactly adept at walking on a rolling object. So, while Kate yelled and motioned at Sticky, he concentrated on trying not to fall to the floor.

Unfortunately, they just seemed to have bad luck. The elevator stopped prematurely - at least, for their purposes - and Sticky was frozen, suspended a good deal above the ground. Reynie didn't fall off the motor, but Sticky didn't even _reach_ the motor.

Sticky whimpered. The sound echoed through the tall shaft.

"It's okay, Sticky!" Kate called nervously. "You'll just have to climb down like Reynie did."

Sticky tried. He truly did. He tended to get addled when he was nervous, and he got nervous easily, and dangling a long way above a very solid elevator motor and the floor underneath it inside a dark elevator shaft outside of which a crew of evil men was hunting him down, was certainly something to make him a little nervous.

Because he was addled because he was nervous, he didn't think to do what Reynie did. He merely tried to slide down the rope. Naturally, after a couple of feet his hands felt like they were on fire. He couldn't help it: He let go of the rope.

Reynie gasped. He watched through his fingers as his friend fell and accelerated downward, yelling. Kate wrapped her legs around the steel rope and flung her arms out to catch Sticky. He came close. She snatched his hands. In an acrobatic circus move, she hung by her legs and swept Sticky by the hands to the floor, just below the motor. His feet touched ground, Kate let go, and Sticky collapsed.

All three of them were breathing heavily. They just stayed and panted for a few moments until Reynie said, "Well, I'm pretty sure everyone's alive."

Sticky only gasped in response.

"Constance!" Kate called up. "I'm coming to get you!"

"It's about time!" came the reply.

Kate set down her knife and rope. She started to climb up the rope. She looked so at home to the boys, like a monkey. She made it look so easy they almost thought they could even do it. Almost.

In thirty seconds she was there, across from Constance.

"Here, Connie-girl!" she said. "Take hold of my arm!"

Constance reached out - but then the elevator started to move. Kate was yanked upward, and Constance fell. She just managed to hang on to the edge of the rectangular opening, dangling by her chubby little hands. Kate, meanwhile, narrowly avoided being pulled into the gears and cogs above. She let go of the rope, allowing herself to fall until she stopped abruptly on the cab. She scrambled to her feet, climbed the rope that was attached to the cab, and grabbed Constance off the wall just in time. The two of them fell again, landing again on top of the cab.

It moved down, down, down, all the way to the basement. The motor was right below. Reynie was clinging to it, looking severely shaken. Kate hopped onto it, and then down to the floor. Reynie followed.

They all looked at their hands. The socks had black streaks on them now, and their hands felt raw.

"Now that we're all down here," said Kate as if the last person had just arrived to some meeting, "Let's have a look at these schematics, shall we?"

She spread the blueprints out on the floor. Almost immediately, Reynie shouted, "There!" and pointed to a map of the building.

"This one shows the air ducts," he explained. "They go all through the building, and there's one right on the floor of this elevator shaft."

They looked down at the vent.

"Fifteen by fifteen," observed Kate in an appraising tone. "Perfect! That's conveniently large."

"What do you..." said Sticky. Then he smiled. "Don't tell me. We're going to sneak through the air ducts."

Kate nodded, grinning.

"But," Constance cut in, "That vent looks pretty hard to move."

Kate wasn't fazed. She slit her knife into the edge of the grate and pried as if she were opening a can. The grate popped up eventually, and Kate (looking immensely satisfied) put her knife in her pocket.

Reynie was skeptical. "Are you sure?"

"Of course! When am I ever not sure?"

"Well, we did almost get killed just now because you forgot something," said Sticky reasonably.

Kate waved her hand dismissively. "Oh, that was just one time!"

"Well?" said a small voice. They all looked down. Constance was already lowering herself into the air duct. "Are you coming, or what?"

* * *

The constant slow crawling got very boring eventually, so Reynie struck up a conversation with the others. "So Sticky," he said, "Did you try sabotaging those hard drives and things left behind by the explosion after we woke up?"

"They're indestructible," replied Sticky promptly and somberly. "And unhackable. The explosion must just have been to exterminate any of his enemies who tried to hurt the Whisperer."

It was rather a tight fit, but more comfortable than they could have asked for. The vent was indeed, as Kate had said, conveniently large. They were also, to the children's surprise, oddly well-cleaned. The inside was silver, and the walls positively gleamed. There was almost no repulsive garbage.

Unfortunately, the method had its complications.

"Uh-oh," said Constance unhappily. "We didn't plan for this."

Being underneath the basement, the children would have to go up a vertical duct to get on the level with doors leading outside.

"Piece of cake," Kate shrugged.

She squeezed herself into the vertical duct and straightened up. Pressing her hands and feet out at angles on the walls, she climbed it in less than thirty seconds. Once securely in the horizontal shaft a floor above, she called down, "Come on, we don't have all day! If you three were any slower, you'd be standing still! Oh wait, you _are_ standing still!"

"Crouching, more like," said Sticky (his back was aching from the way he had to squat and crawl).

As Kate so eloquently stated, they didn't have all day. The other three climbed up with slightly more difficulty. Shortly after, they heard heavy footsteps and men's voices through a grate. They peered in and saw:

McCracken, whistling a cheery waltz and strolling down the corridor, with Crawling sauntering alongside him. They were both - almost effortlessly - upturning the occasional desk and sticking their heads in doorways to sniff out hiding children.

Constance wrinkled her nose with disgust at the two men. Reynie laid a finger to his lips warningly.

"_I know we're not supposed to talk!_" she snapped.

McCracken stopped whistling his tune. Both the Ten Men turned on their heels and looked in their direction. McCracken's piercing blue eyes were flashing.

"Did you here something just now?" asked Crawlings slowly.

"Of course I did, and so did you. What we need to do now is find the _source_ of the noise, not debate whether we heard it."

There was a distant crash.

"What the - ?" Crawlings and McCracken ran towards the sound.

All of the children breathed again.

"Good thing that happened," said Reynie. "S.Q. probably knocked something over again."

Minutes later, they were dusting themselves off in the open corridor. The three taller ones looked anxiously down both ends of the hallway, and then Kate glanced at the plans.

"The door's just around that corner," she said, rolling them up again.

There were no Ten Men around the corner, or outside, as far as they could see. So they ran across the vast ground to the cellar, praying not to be caught.

There was no door to the temporary shed - just a big missing part of one wall. Kate checked for people hiding inside with her fist clenched around her knife. There was no one.

"Should we try and take the Salamander?" Sticky asked, scrutinizing the complex control panels.

"I don't think so. The Ten Men could probably stop us, and we don't even really know how to get back to the suburbs from Third Island. I say we just wait in the storage chamber."

"We may have a long wait ahead of us," Reynie reminded them. "Mr. Curtain has to recreate those rendezvous riddles since we took them."

The Salamander, too, was deserted. They resisted the temptation to open the boxes in the storage chamber - Reynie didn't think he could stomach any more of the Ten Men's sort of cargo - and settled down inside it themselves.

"And now we wait," said Kate, pocketing her Army Knife.

"And now we wait," the others repeated.

* * *

A/N: I actually did some research on elevators to make sure of exactly what the foursome would be dealing with in the shaft scene. If I got any of the facts mixed up, please inform me. I truly want to know; I won't change the chapter, I'll just realize that Wikipedia isn't even reliable enough for something like THIS.


	10. The Stowaways in the Salamander

This next chapter explains a lot, but also opens up a couple more questions. Of course, if you've already read TLS's book, you know the answers to just about all of them. The tenth chapter is bound to be full important stuff-you know, the big one-O and all.

Disclaimer: **I do not own **_**Holes **_**or the name 'Mr. Sir.' I simply borrowed it because **

**I couldn't think of anything better.**

Chapter Ten: The Stowaways In the Salamander

"Tell me again where we're going?" asked Crawlings as they got seated in the Salamander.

"Crawlings, you really need to listen more carefully," McCracken chided halfheartedly. "We're going to see that old r – I mean, Mr. Sir." His voice shook with silent laughter when he spoke the so obviously false name.

"So where's his hidey-hole now?" inquired Hertz. "He changes the location just about every two years, it seems like."

"This map doesn't seem to point to any spot I know of. I suppose we'll see when we get there," replied McCracken.

Every single Ten Man filed on board - except for one.

"I'll meet you fellows there," said the retreating Ten Man.

"Don't be late, McCraig!" Bludgins called. "Oh, and you, McCracken, be sure you don't call _Mr. Sir_ an old you-know-what while we're there. I believe the politically correct term is 'benefactor'."

"Don't worry, Bludgins," McCracken chuckled.

As the rumbling engine started, the four stealthy stowaways crouching inside the storage chamber looked at each other.

"Who on earth is Mr - " Sticky began, but the rest was drowned out. His mouth kept moving, but there was no sound. The noise cancellation had been activated.

And so, Reynie was left to ponder in blissfully undisturbed silence and spy through the slats in the metal door that divided them from...from...well, no, he wouldn't delve into those violent thoughts.

Who was this "Mr. Sir"? And what kind of a cover-up name was that? How long would this detour take? Would they even go to Faul's Prairie? How had Mr. Curtain taken the news of their escape and the Whisperer's self-destruction? Would the Ten Men be able to figure out the clues?

As for Mr. Sir, he must have been some strange helper for the Ten Men. He thought of the Ten Men's...tools. Surely Mr. Curtain wouldn't waste the time to construct all of them. That must have been Mr. Sir's job.

He also wondered how they were going to get away without being caught. The Ten Men were faster and stronger, and not one of them had a conscience. That didn't make for good odds for the children.

The Salamander was moving now. It picked up speed as Garrotte steered it towards the river.

Reynie was impressed, amazed, and relieved that they had gotten away with all of their actions in past hours. Their endeavors had certainly been risky - reckless or suicidal, to say the worst. It was a remarkable thing that they had stolen the cards, blown up the Whisperer, demolished half the wall, and escaped from their confinement; while the Ten Men were heading out exactly as planned.

Of course, Reynie didn't need reminding that the danger was far from passed. If anything, it was closer at hand. If a Ten Man so much as looked through the slats in the storage chamber's door, they would be found out. Reynie swallowed.

With a slight lurch and a gentle bob, the Salamander entered Stonetown River. Reynie's heart ached. Home was so close, and yet so far.

* * *

The Ten Men did not switch the noise cancellation back off, and Reynie and the others did not stop peering anxiously through the door slats. Finally (_crrrrunch_) the Salamander stopped on gravel and loose pebbles. The vehicle stopped vibrating, and shortly after, they could hear themselves breathe again.

"Well, here we are," said McCracken, his fists on his hips. "Just some old downtrodden cave on a random sector of the river."

"Old Shifty lives in there, eh?" said Garrotte.

"No, it's Mr. SIR," said Sharpe, laughing.

The six of them got out and entered the cave. After being safely sure that they weren't coming back, the Mysterious Benedict Society dumped themselves out of the storage chamber. They heard fakely boisterous greetings, dull smalltalk, and an odd wheezy laugh echoing in the cave. There were no more sounds after that.

"Somehow, they don't strike me as the type who would be too comfy in a cave," reflected Kate.

"Are you kidding?" Reynie said. "With the kind of transactions they must go through? They'll be right at home."

Constance, who was still drowsy, scowled. It wasn't hard. "Well, this is stupid! Why did you make us come along on this, George Washington?"

"Oh, we're back to that _George Washington_ stuff, are we? Great." Sticky caught himself before he polished his spectacles.

They looked out at the landscape to try and get a sense of where they were. Everything was completely unrecognizable.

"Well this is just great," Constance grumped. "Forced to wait for the Ten Men to finish their little meeting with some awful old hermit while we wonder what sort of way they're going to kill us when we make a feeble break for it."

They weren't forced to wait for long. In fact, McCracken, Sharpe, Hertz, Garotte, Bludgins, and Crawlings took them quite by surprise when they emerged. The four Society members were only just able to scramble back into the storage chamber. (Actually, Reynie lost one shoe along the way. They'd just have to pray it wasn't noticed.)

"That was mercifully short," said Crawlings. "That man is quite repulsive."

"What do you think Mr. Curtain is doing right now?" said Sharpe with a malicious smile.

"Probably feverishly trying to repair the damage in his flawless plans."

"And his precious Whisperer," added McCracken.

"Honestly!" Reynie whispered. "They insult their employer like that! Is there _anyone_ they like?"

"Shhh," murmured Sticky.

"He wouldn't listen to me when I offered to have Bludgins stay and search for the chickies, he just insisted on having that buffoon S.Q. do it. He couldn't find an Easter egg!"

"Well, where do we go now?" said Hertz. "We mustn't follow the wrong instructions."

"Mr. Curtain sure is careful," said Crawlings, scratching his bald head.

"All he told me was to 'follow the See'," said McCracken.

"See, as in, to _see _with your eyes, or _C_ as in the letter C?" asked Sharpe.

McCracken only shrugged. "He just said, 'see.'"

"Maybe it means _sea_, like the ocean," said Crawlings. "I think I might have...hold on." He pulled out his own card. Reynie could read it from where he was. He frowned. That was odd. The first word-"search"-was scratched out even in this recreation, so that it looked like "sea rch." Wait...SEA!

"Sea..." Crawlings murmured, just like Reynie was thinking. "Do you think it means this?" He passed the card to McCracken.

"It might. Yes, I think it does-the first three letters of 'search' are not only separated from the other three, they're in a different color ink."

"Well," said Hertz, "What's it say?"

"_'Search the following location for a man named Rubicund. You will contact your employer, ask the man a certain question, and relay his answer.'_"

"What question are we supposed to ask?" said Bludgins, bemused.

"I imagine Mr. Curtain'll _tell_ us that when we _contact_ him, O Smart One."

"Well, what's the location?"

"It's written in some kind of code. Look."

"Oh, this is just like Cryptoquote!" said Garrotte excitedly.

The others looked at him.

Garrotte's beard twitched. "What? It's a puzzle in the newspaper! _You _like to do the crossword, right, Hertz?"

Hertz shrugged. He had a golden pen clipped to his collar.

"Anyway, we find the most common symbol first, and that means E. And so on."

They listened in boredom as the Ten Men deciphered a few letters (much slower and with more bickering then the four of them had done, Reynie was pleased to note). Suddenly, McCracken began to laugh. It made Reynie uncomfortable; he hoped McCracken hadn't just spotted his shoe.

"McCracken, you old fool," he said to himself. "Look, fellows! T is E, and Z is T, and I is H. He's modeled the code off the ordering of the letters on a keyboard!"

"Oh," said Sharpe. "So Q is A and W is B and E is C and so on."

"Yes!"

Reynie felt rueful. If they had known that, they would have moved through the decoding progress much more quickly.

Just as the Ten Men did now. Within three minutes, the entire message sat before them, nicely and neatly translated.

"Olli Voyle Steelmaking Co, eh? Looks like we're heading back into town, boys." McCracken shredded the card and dropped the pieces in the river. "Well, time to go. No, there won't be time for coffee and scones, Crawlings." He pulled out his radio. "Hello? McCraig, come in."

Static. "I hear you."

"You'll need to go to Faul's Prairie-the remains of the O. V. Steel building. You're looking for Mr. Rubicund."

"Roger."

Reynie saw his own anticipation mirrored on his friends' faces. In just a couple of hours, they could be free.

* * *

"Let's go, fellows," said Bludgins.

They had just arrived at Faul's Prairie, a little ways away from the ruins in case of deception, and the Ten Men were wasting no time. In a moment they had filed out, and Reynie assumed them to be gone.

_Assumed._

Reynie was the first out of the storage chamber. He bent to retrieve and remove his shoe, but something caught his eye. He leaned over the side of the great, armored vehicle-and staggered back in horror.

The entire crowd of Ten Men was standing feet away from the Salamander and another vehicle; it was (and this _really_ bewildered him) an ambulance.

Reynie kept on backing up-a little _too _far, apparently, for he toppled over the other side of the Salamander. Thankfully, he was unhurt. Also thankfully, the Ten Men didn't hear him.

_Un_luckily, the others hadn't seen what Reynie had. Constance leaned over the side and said, clear as day, "What are you _doing?_"

The Ten Men froze.

* * *

The situation couldn't have been worse. Reynie's friends were caught. And there was nothing he could do to help them, even though he himself had managed to stay secret.

"Well, well," said McCracken with delight. "Aren't we clever? Here. Sharpe, take this one for me! Yes, that one-Mr. Spectacles there." He turned back to talk to the three Society members. "I can't wait to hear how you plucky duckies escaped, but I've got to make a little call." He took out his radio and spoke into it: "Mr. Curtain, sir? Please come in."

"Yes, what is it? Have you met up with Mr. Rubicund?"

"Not exactly, sir. What, perchance, is S.Q. doing?"

"Looking for the brats, of course! Why do you ask?"

McCracken chuckled. "He won't find them. It appears we have a few young stowaways on board here, sir."

"_WHAT?_"

"What would you propose I do with them."

"Under different circumstances, I would tell you to do what you like with them, but we can't have them mangled-I may still need them. Do you think you could just keep them with you until my conference is over?"

"Probably."

"Well, then. Over."

McCracken put his radio away.

"So, what now?" said Bludgins.

"Now, we look for the other one."

"Other one?"

"My dear Bludgins, do you really think they would leave one of their friends behind? No, he's here somewhere, all right."

"Which one? The one with the freckles?"

"Ye-ohoho! Look at this, fellows. It's a shoe! And none of our _other_ guests have a missing shoe, now do they?"

Reynie closed his eyes, still pressed flat against the side of the Salamander. What an idiot he'd been!

McCracken was now circling slowly around the Salamander. "Oh, Reynie!" he was calling in an invidious voice. "Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

Reynie noiselessly slid through the tread at at the bottom of the Salamander, slithering under its keel. His mind was racing. He couldn't leave his friends alone in this predicament, even for a moment. All the same, he couldn't just do nothing either.

McCracken crouched to look under the Salamander; and in that split second, Reynie made his choice.

He'd never run so fast in his life. He was flying over the grassland, and he heard McCracken's surprised exclamation and knew he was being hotly pursued. The ground was sloping, getting steadily steeper and steeper as the two climbed upward; this didn't make it any easier to run fast.

His running was uneven because of one missing shoe. Occasionally, something sharp would prick his bare foot as he ran, but he didn't care. He was just impressed McCracken hadn't caught up with him yet.

If he'd gotten his hopes up, they were about to be dashed. One particularly crooked step caused him to trip and fall head over heels, rolling and sliding, the wind beaten out of him. McCracken approached with a triumphant (and a little relieved) smile. Reynie squeezed his eyes shut and extended his foot out, hard. He heard a thud and a grunt of pain. Hardly believing his luck, he scrambled to his feet again and sprinted on while McCracken was still staggering. If he could only reach the house...

He was drawing close to the city and its tall skyscrapers now. The slope turned sharply downward just ahead. Mr. Benedict's house was in sight. It looked so very far away...he knew he'd never make it in time. But then, with a leap of his heart, he saw that he didn't need to.

Milligan was at the bottom of the very steep hill that Reynie and McCracken were at the top of, talking with one of his sentries by a sleek black van.

Reynie made one last desperate surge forward just as McCracken grabbed him.

"_MILLIGAN!_"


	11. The Prairie, the Factory, and the River

MUAHAHAHAHA! That wasn't an evil laugh, just an excited laugh. I've been looking forward to writing this chapter. It's got another cliffy ending, though, so brace yourself. And don't forget to review!

Disclaimer: **Please see previous chapter.**

Chapter Eleven: The Prairie, the Factory, and the River

When Milligan heard his name, he stopped dead in the middle of a sentence. His mouth still slightly open, he turned his head to look up the hill - and his mouth fell totally open in astonishment.

Reynie Muldoon was in a struggle with none other than McCracken. Even as he shouted to Milligan, McCracken clapped a hand over Reynie's mouth. Milligan caught a glimpse of Reynie's brown eyes, wide and scared, before McCracken dragged him swiftly away, out of sight.

Milligan stood stunned for another half-second. Then he ordered Hardy, who was also gaping, to go and alert Mr. Benedict. The other sentries too, but Mr. Benedict was top priority. He hurled himself into the van and revved the engine.

* * *

The grass tickled Reynie's bare foot as McCracken escorted him - none too gently - back to the Salamander. "You chickies are hard to round up," he informed Reynie.

His friends, each with a matching Ten Man that gripped them by their shoulders, greeted him with rueful smiles when he looked at them.

Sharpe opened his mouth as they approached. "McCracken - "

"Get in the Salamander, please," said McCracken politely; his voice was laced with venom. Everyone present fell silent.

McCracken stopped pressing his hand to Reynie's mouth and thrust him forward. He ascended the ladder compliantly, not daring to do or say anything else. Sticky and Bludgins followed suit. Kate climbed the ladder with Hertz very close behind her; Crawlings came up with Constance soon after.

McCracken was the last to get in the armored vehicle. Without bothering with words, he shoved Garrotte roughly aside and grasped the steering wheel himself. Kate watched him, glowering ferociously.

"Sharpe," he called lazily, "I think our little friends need a handkerchief - would you kindly lend them one?"

The children stiffened.

Sharpe grinned. "With pleasure," he replied. He pulled out the elegant white cloth with a flourish.

The Ten Man gave the four of them an appraising sort of smirk. He had the air of somebody picking out a coffee mug or refrigerator magnet. Finally, he took hold of Sticky's chin and raised the handkerchief.

_CRASH!_

The whole world seemed to lurch tremendously - Something very large, very fast, and very powerful rammed into the Salamander. The great vehicle tipped; and everyone inside it fell over one another.

Constance fell on Reynie. Hertz fell on Sharpe. The two of them fell on the other Ten Men, who fell on each other. McCracken tripped over poor Kate and very nearly flattened her. And Sticky - Sticky toppled over the edge of the Salamander with a yell of fright.

As soon as it had come, it passed. The Salamander righted itself, and McCracken said something that would have warranted Reynie to cover Constance's ears, had they not both been clambering frantically over the side.

Reynie hit the ground, hard, with his upper arm. He grunted with the impact, and Constance complained that he was squeezing her too tightly. He scrambled to get to his feet – and the moment he did, two people leapt after them.

Kate and McCracken hit the ground at exactly the same time, on their feet. However, Kate was far lighter than the enormous Ten Man, and so she recovered more quickly than he did. Strong powerful fist collided with square jutting jaw, and McCracken went reeling bakcwards.

She winced and recoiled; McCracken's huge chin was not exactly soft. Unfortunately, he was every bit as cunning as he was big – he swung his foot out, and his shiny, well-polished black shoe succeeded in knocking Kate's ankles and sending her sprawling in the grass.

Without further ado, McCracken brushed off his suit coat and took a step toward Reynie, who instinctively took a step and gripped Constance ever the more tightly. She made a whimpering sound and clutched at his sleeve.

McCracken laughed. He then stepped on Reynie's foot very hard, causing him to double over in the pain of it.

"Thank you," he said with a hearty wink. The next thing Reynie knew, Constance was in McCracken's arms and the Ten Man as well as girl were both back in the Salamander; McCracken must have decided that just one child would suffice for ransom purposes.

Reynie saw Kate dash over to an unmoving, tea-colored body. "What happened to Sticky?" she cried. "Is that...is that _blood?_"

"I don't know," Reynie wheezed. "Listen – McCracken – he - !"

Reynie's desperate words were drowned out by the desperate words of someone else, emanating from a demolished van that might have once been black. "Kate! Children! Kate!" called Milligan's deep voice. "Hold on! I'm here! Hang on!"

The van was what had crashed into the Salamander, and it was all the worse for it. Milligan was trapped inside, trying to fight his way through the crushed doors and shattered glass. On the other hand, the Salamander itself had barely a scratch on it and was obviously still operational, as evidenced by the rumbling motor.

The Ten Men were about to take off with Constance, Sticky was injured to an unknown extent, and Milligan was powerless to assist them. What else was there to do but follow them? There was no time to think, only time enough to leap onto the Salamander and madly cling to it for dear life as it shot away.

* * *

McCracken punched a number that Constance couldn't see into his sleek and glossy-looking business calculator, and then tossed it onto the ground where the wreck of a van was, as well as her friends. Constance remembered easily the magnitude of these calculators' destructive power, and her stomach plummeted with sheer dread.

"HELP!" she shrieked, over and over again. Hertz, who was carrying her, pressed her face to his chest, so that her voice was muffled and she couldn't see. The smell of cologne in her nostrils was overpowering; she couldn't breathe very well either.

The engine started, loud in her ears. She could sense motion – they were picking up speed rapidly. When the wind was positively screaming and her hair was whipping and flapping so much that it hurt, the pressure on her head relented and she could turn it.

McCracken was at the wheel like the captain of a ship (she thought longingly of Captain Noland, who had once rescued her and her friends from a similar encounter with the Ten Men). Bludgins was sitting near the front with his briefcase in his lap and his sunglasses glinting in the light cast by the setting sun. Garrotte was standing next to McCracken, his hand on a rail, looking out at the fields soaring past. Sharpe and Crawlings were sitting near Constance and Hertz. All of them were looking perfectly calm and amiable.

Until Milligan's head appeared atop the ladder, that is. He waved at Constance with an anxious expression; the Ten Men leapt into action, not looking quite so cheerful anymore.

"Bludgins," yelled McCracken, "Take care of Milligan."

Bludgins didn't need to be told a second time. He strode over to the edge of the Salamander where Milligan was. He raised his briefcase – and dropped it. Bludgins teetered, and then Milligan pushed him backwards. The briefcase took to the air and flew out of sight, narrowly missing Constance's head, while the Ten Man himself slumped against the opposite rail.

"Consider me taken care of," said Milligan in a satisfied tone. He turned his tranquilizer gun on Sharpe, who immediately raised his own briefcase to fend off any attack. Three more feathered darts appeared in the hard leather.

Sharpe twisted his neck and slid his necktie loose. Constance could see a familiar-looking metallic fringe on the narrow end of it. Sharpe lashed out with the tie as though it were a bullwhip. There was a skin-tingling twang of metal hitting metal as the end of the whip snapped on the edge of the Salamander where, seconds before, Milligan's head had been.

Milligan jumped on board, rolled several feet, and then sprang _to _his feet. He whipped something out of his jacket and threw it at McCracken, who had just ordered Garrotte to take the wheel. It hit McCracken squarely in the face. He dropped his briefcase and staggered, collapsing in the back of the Salamander.

Constance knew he was feigning, though – he'd gotten the idea from Kate. She tried to tell this to Milligan but the roar was too loud for her tiny voice to make itself heard.

Milligan was now shoving Garrotte away from the steering wheel and taking hold of it himself. Crawlings straightened up, and extended his arms forward. Constance could just hear the growing electric whine.

McCracken's eyes snapped open, momentarily abandoning his pretense. He shouted at Crawlings, "No, don't, you imbecile!"

But too late. Crawlings had thrown caution to the winds – and caution wasn't the only thing: The flickering wires were windswept immediately, backfiring and striking Crawlings himself as well as Hertz. And since Hertz was carrying Constance, she too was shocked. For the second time in her life, she felt electrifying pain and then blacked out.

* * *

Luckily, there was a sort of small metal ledge on the side of the Salamander that served as foothold. Otherwise Kate and Reynie would never have managed to hang on. There was also a handle-shaped bar that curved out, and then back in, which they could hold on to with their hands. Gradually, the Salamander started moving faster and faster until everything looked like a blur except Kate to Reynie, and he to her.

It seemed to be driving very jerkily, as if control of the wheel was constantly shifting persons. One particularly sudden lurch actually caused Kate to lose her grip; she would have died if not for Reynie.

She broke lose with a scream, but at the same time Reynie grabbed her hand with one of his own. He felt like his arm was being pulled out of its socket. Summoning buried strength that he didn't know he had, he and Kate tugged until she latched on securely again.

Both of them stood panting, the wind stinging their faces and whipping their hair. They were shaking violently. Finally Kate said, "Thanks for that."

Reynie nodded.

The mentioned ruins of the Olli Voyle Steelmaking Company building were in sight now. Reynie saw a pile of rubble and damaged foundations, as well as a wide expanse of upper floors, supported only by weathered and tottering wooden beams scattered all beneath it, exposed to the open air.

He also realized that they were on a collision course. His stomach flying away with the wind, he jostled Kate's shoulder and pointed fearfully straight ahead – at the heap of wood rubble. Kate let out a gasp that went unheard. The obstacle was getting larger and larger. They cast around feverishly for anything, anything at all; but what could they do in their current position? Nothing. They threw their free arms around one another and closed their eyes. Reynie listened to the howling wind in his ears, as braced for the crash as anyone could have been at that moment...

...But it didn't come.

They opened their eyes again and found themselves skirting the side of the huge plane supported by wooden beams. Someone on board had changed direction at the absolute final second. In fact, the Salamander was slowing down. Once Reynie could hear himself think again over the rushing, they peeked up to see what was going on aboard.

When Reynie saw who was driving, he thought he might faint with relief (though falling would have been inadvisable). It wasn't Garrotte. It wasn't McCracken. It wasn't even a Ten Man. It was Milligan.

However, like most comforting things it seemed lately, Reynie's relief was short-lived. While Milligan was occupied with the wheel, something caught Reynie's eye in his peripheral vision. Garrotte was stalking toward Milligan behind his back. He lifted his briefcase like a club -

Both Reynie and Kate cupped their hands around their mouths and yelled, "Milligan, watch out!" (Actually, that was what _Reynie_ said; Kate shouted, "Look out Milligan, behind you!" so it sounded like a garbled, "Millikout watchilligtan eehynde you!")

Milligan got the message. Though surprised and delighted to hear their voices, he kept his wits about him. Wrenching around, he was startled to see Garrotte swinging his briefcase at his head like a baseball bat. Milligan ducked and shot Garrotte in the leg with his tranquilizer gun. The Te Man froze and seemed to throw his briefcase accidentally. He plucked the dart out angrily, but then went cross-eyed and fell on his face.

The two kids cheered and high-fived. Milligan turned around and let the Salamander stop. Kate and Reynie climbed on board with difficulty, because they weren't near the ladder. Kate cried, "Oh, Milligan!" and ran to hug him. They both winced at the other's grip while Reynie watched smiling.

It was a bittersweet reunion. "I'm so glad you're both safe," said Milligan.

"'Safe' is a pretty broad term," said Reynie dryly. He looked around. The Salamander was littered with fallen horrors – briefcases and Ten Men alike. They were all there. And yet...

"Milligan," said Reynie, his brow furrowing as he tried to recall who was missing, "Where's...? - Uh, um, uh, M-McCracken's awake!"

He was right. The Ten Man had not truly been knocked out, and Reynie had spotted his hand inching toward the handle of the nearest briefcase (Crawlings's). McCracken sparng to his feet with a snarl of "_It takes more than a boomerang to take _me _out!_", and sent the briefcase sky-high. It fell open, and deadly office supplies cascaded everywhere. Several staple removers hit the floor and began clattering around like wind-up teeth, chomping about rapidly with sharp points that made them look like piranhas; a leather-clad cigar box flew at Kate's face. She jerked her head to the side and it smashed on the floor. Everyone paused in spite of themselves to see what was inside it (except McCracken, who of course already knew). Strewn all over the floor were...a couple of AA batteries and a bunch of tiny springs. Pandora's box was fake – an empty threat.

McCracken made a grab for Reynie's collar, snapping him out of his reverie about all the times he had thought with terror of a small box with nothing in it. Reynie slid nimbly underneath a bench, McCracken's closing hand barely brushing his hair. He came up again behind McCracken. Then he hesitated.

Everybody was frozen, watching and waiting to see what other people was going to do. Reynie saw McCracken's eyes flit to the left. He looked over there too, and saw Constance lying unconscious under Hertz's arm. In that single second, all of them seemed to make up their minds: Reynie ran over and scooped up Constance, so as not to leave her there alone in present company, and the two Wetheralls advanced upon McCracken.

The Ten Man, like a cornered wild animal, lashed out savagely with a letter opener that had still been in his pocket. There was a blur of slashing silver, before Kate screamed and staggered backwards, clutching her left forearm, into the arms of her father, who had rushed to catch her after McCracken's lupine reaction. They both backed into the controls and accidentally triggered them.

The Salamander swerved wildly. Again, every human being on board fell over the metal floor as the many unconscious bodies rolled over it. Constance rolled into the ladder, and fell over the edge. Before she could hit the ground speeding, however, Reynie slammed into the rail and caught her. With the little girl still in his arms, he stumbled over to the opposite corner. Meanwhile Milligan was trying to help Kate, whose arm was bleeding freely, whilst avoiding McCracken. Reynie recovered his common sense before the rest of them, and slammed the lever the Wetheralls had accidentally shifted back into its original positon.

Instantaneously, the Salamander came to a complete halt; everybody stumbled to the front, and Reynie very nearly fell over the edge. None of the unconscious Ten Men, miraculously, had fallen off the edge. As they all regained their bearings, the fake ambulence was driving back towards them, from the distant remains of the factory. It stopped beside the larger vehicle, on the side opposite the ladder.

Milligan, understandably preoccupied, shouted to the children, "Get OUT! Jump onto that van!" for he and McCracken stood between them and the ladder.

Reynie didn't need to be told twice. He went first, leaping on top of the white van (and breaking off the siren) with Constance in his arms. There was a yell inside at the impact, and the Ten Man McCraig's torso poked through the driver's seat window and saw Reynie. He flicked his wrist; a pencil flew straight at Reynie. Reynie jumped, and it flew underneath him and up into the Salamander, skewering Milligan's hat.

The Ten Man's next attack was to grab Reynie's ankle and yank him off his feet. Reynie's chin struck the top of the van painfully, and he saw stars and dropped Constance. Fortunately the pencil had attracted Kate's attention and she'd jumped down to help just in time to catch the sime-conscious toddler. The Ten Man, in a fierce struggle with Reynie (who was losing badly), sneered at her. "Coming to help your boyfriend?" he jeered.

He was silenced by a faceful of Kate's shoe sole. He flew backwards and was knocked out cold before he hit the ground.

"Nice one," said Reynie, and Kate grinned.

Milligan, not willing to leave the children to their fate, pushed McCracken with all his might and was on the ground before the Ten Man had even struck the back wall. He stuffed the unconscious McCraig into the back alongside an unfamiliar man who'd been previously bound and gagged, and seated himself in the driver's seat. Kate climbed in beside him, while Reynie took the back seat with Constance.

"Fasten your seatbelts straight away," Milligan said. "This will be a rather bumpy ride."

The car bolted away from the Salamander, but within seconds the aquatic tank was gaining on them.

"What happened to Sticky?" Reynie asked in a rather high voice. "And who is this?" He opened one of the incarcerated man's eyelids.

"Sticky's fine, don't you worry. And that's Mr. Rubicund."

"Milligan," said Kate apprehensively, "why are we heading for the ruins?"

"No time to explain," said her father distractedly. "Just trust me, okay? And please be quiet now, this requires a good deal of concentration."

The Salamander was now so close that they could see McCracken's murderous face; it made Reynie shudder. Milligan flipped a switch, and all the windows rolled down into the doors, out of sight.

"What was that for?" said Kate.

"Don't want them to shatter," muttered Milligan, who was now trying to force the windshield out of the car while driving at the same time.

Kate looked scared. "But why would they shatter?"

Milligan did not answer.

The air rushing through the open windows made Reynie's ears pop unpleasantly. McCraig's lips flapped in the wind. All at once, quite suddenly, the air changed - and so did the light.

The fake ambulance was now rolling at top speed _under _the ruins, with the Salamander thundering along behind it. Milligan was a rather talented driver, and the van was moderately small. That meant that he was able to weave in between the wooden columns without crashing into any of them. On the other hand, the Slamander was large and bulky as well as armored, so McCracken was making no trouble to avoid the rotting beams, which were being slammed into and sent flying by its hull, or else crushed under its treads. In any case, the beams were disappearing at an alarming rate, and the upper floors were groaning under the strain.

Milligan nodded. "That should do it," he said to no one in particular. Quite without warning, he turned sharply and slammed his foot on the gas pedal; the van shot like a bullet towards the bright, open prairie. Once they had escaped the shadow of the old crumbling building, he slowed down considerably and looked behind him.

"What are you doing?" Reynie asked in a high voice. "He's still coming!"

But Milligan simply held up a hand. "Wait for it..."

There was nothing for it but to watch. McCracken's smile had disappeared, wondering why Milligan had stopped. Suspicious, he slowed down as well.

That was possibly the biggest mistake a Ten Man ever made.

Had he gone a bit faster, he might have made it out. Unfortunately for him, however, he was still underneath the building when the remaining pillars all snapped, and the entire building collapsed on top of the Salamander.

Kate cheered and punched the air; Milligan breathed a sigh of relief. Reynie could do nothing except grin broadly. "You did it, Milligan!" Kate cried, hugging her father. "It wasn't just me," he replied. "You've all performed brilliantly."

"Wait a minute," said Reynie, suddenly wary. "What's that sound?"

They all fell silent. There was a faint roaring sound in the background.

The children wrenched around in horror, thinking the Salamander was still going. Milligan, however, merely smiled. "It's the river," he said calmly.

Kate and Reynie both said "Oh!" and laughed at themselves. Milligan did not laugh.

"Okay," he said in a businesslike manner. "I'm going to need you to tell me everything you know about Curtain's location-"

"We know exactly where he is," Kate interjected proudly. "Third Island."

"The abandoned prison complex?"

"That's the one."

Milligan looked impressed. "All right, I'm going to take you straight back to Mr. Benedict and then I'll go-"

The outcry from Reynie and Kate totally drowned his last words. "NO!" they both cried in outrage, and then Kate began to go into a furious tirade about always being left out of everything.

Milligan wasn't having any of it. "Absolutely _not. _You two have already been through quite enough."

But you don't have _time _to drop us off back there!" she protested. "By the time you get to Third Island Curtain will be long gone."

Milligan had no argument for this. After thinking hard for a minute, he said, "Okay, new plan. Kate, I know you know how to drive."

Kate looked shocked.

Milligan gave her a sly look. "You think I haven't noticed you sneaking out to drive our old car around the farm every night? Anyway, we're not far from Mr. Benedict's house. I'm going to need you to drive there - and straight there, don't take ANY detours - while I go to apprehend Curtain. Right now he's all alone at the prison-"

"Not counting S.Q.," said Reynie.

"-So he should be a cinch to nab."

"But if we have the van," said Kate, "What will you take?"

"I'll be going on the river," said Milligan, "in the Salamander."

Two seconds' ringing silence followed these words, and then Reynie said, "You're not sane. The Salamander is buried under ten feet of wood rubble."

Milligan was shaking his head. "The Salamander's too tough to be crushed by that. The whole purpose of that was to incapacitate McCracken."

Kate blinked nervously at Milligan. "What if _he_" - she jerked her head at the Ten Man in the back seat - "wakes up?"

Milligan handed her something long and dark. Craning his neck, Reynie saw that it was his tranquilizer gun. Kate looked up at her father with round eyes, the weapon trembling in her hands. "But-"

"I've got other things to use on Curtain. I'm trusting you with this; it's only to be used in dire emergencies." He hugged them both. "I have to go now."

With that, he exited the car and sped off toward the thinning cloud of dust.

The second he was gone, Reynie turned to Kate. "We're following him, right?"

"Of course we are," said Kate.

"But what about McCraig? He's in here with Constance."

Kate said, "Maybe I should just put another tranquilizer dart in his arm or some-"

"No! Too much of that kind of drug can be lethal."

Kate frowned. "Hmmmm," she said. "Oh, well. Those darts last for hours; we're not going to be gone _that _long."

The two of them stepped out of the fake ambulance and peered towards what used to be the factory. It appeared that McCracken had gotten a reprieve; a large square wooden plank had fallen on the Salamander, doing nothing but striking McCracken's head and knocking him out. Kate hoped he would at least have a nasty bump for a few weeks. Milligan had now managed to start the Salamander and was driving it steadily in the direction of the river. Kate and Reynie were just wondering how they were going to follow him when the storage chamber door flew open behind Milligan's back and out came Sharpe.

"I _knew _it!" cried Reynie as Kate gasped. "I knew he was missing!"

Several thing happened at once. Just as the Salamander was plopping unceremoniously into the water, Milligan began to fight with Sharpe. Kate and Reynie tore off towards the great armored vehicle.

They skidded to a halt at the ladder, which was bobbing up and down. They could hear the sounds of combat above, but couldn't see. Kate leapt onto the ladder and climbed onto the deck. Reynie attempted to jump after her, but at this point the Salamander was drifting away from the bank - just far enough to make it impossible for Reynie to jump onto it.

Reynie attempted to grasp the ladder, but it was slick and wet. The two seconds that followed were the longest of Reynie's life. He took in the ladder, the battle above, the frothing water below, and the all too rapid descent into the river. Reynie braced himself for the fall, knowing that he would be sucked into the treads, but before he had entered the water, a sure, strong hand grabbed his own.

Kate's hand pulled with some effort until Reynie could see above the railing. Reynie laughed shakily. "Thanks, Ka-AAGH!"

The hand with an inescapable grasp on Reynie's own did not belong to Kate.

It belonged to McCracken.

* * *

Milligan swung a fist at Sharpe, who ducked and then swung his briefcase at Milligan's head. Thinking that Sharpe had a distinctly unfair advantage with this, Milligan decided to even up the score a bit. He hit Sharpe's arm in exactly the right place; the Ten Man yelped and dropped his briefcase, which still had multiple seringe-like darts sticking out of it. Sharpe snarled, but Milligan was too quick for him. Kate's father swooped down upon the briefcase, coming up with a tranquilizer dart in hand. Before Sharpe could stop him, he had jabbed the Ten Man's neckwith it.  
Sharpe groped at the minute wound for a second, before slumping to the ground like all his fellows. Milligan turned around - just in time to see the unfortunate events unfolding right behind him.

Milligan saw his gun spinning over the side of the Salamander and splashing into the water. He also saw that Sharpe was not the only Ten Man who had made it through the crash. McCracken was in a fierce struggle with his daughter and Reynie. Reynie was being dangled in the air by his wrist, trying to kick McCracken's shins. Kate threw herself at the Ten Man, but he threw her right back. She landed in the corner on her arm, which was at an extremely unlucky angle, and screamed aloud. She did not get up.

McCracken turned his head and grinned triumphantly at Milligan. He pulled Reynie close, locking his elbow around the boy's neck. The Ten Man was in perfect position to break his neck.

No one moved.

McCracken laughed softly. "Looks a little like checkmate," he said conversationally.

Milligan started forward, but McCracken flexed his arm, causing Reynie to gag.

The message was clear. Milligan stopped.

"Now we're getting somewhere," said McCracken cheerfully, though he did not relax his grip. "Now, if you would please kneel down, nice and slowly, and slide all your weapons across the floor to me..."

"My gun was thrown overboard," said Milligan.

McCracken gave Milligan a knowing and patient smile. "I know perfectly well that you've got a belt under that shirt laden with items just as effective. Please, hand it over." He beckoned with his free arm.

Milligan stooped and reached under his shirt. But before McCracken knew what had happened, Milligan had reached over to an open briefcase lying on the floor and grabbed the only item still inside: a laser pointer.

Milligan held the pointer at the ready. McCracken lifted Reynie slightly off his feet; he began to choke.

"Put him down or I'll shoot you with this," Milligan said.

McCracken raised his eyebrows. "Do you really think the laser will hit me before I move Reynie into the shot?"

But Reynie yelled hoarsely, "Don't listen to him, Milligan! He's bluffing!"

McCracken's smile did not falter. "Oh, am I?"

"He knows Mr. Curtain wants us alive!" Reynie sounded a little less certain now.

"Mr. Curtain needs _one _of you," McCracken amended. "I can just bring Katie-Cat over there."

"Like hell..." said Kate fiercely through quiet sobs. Her arm had been broken by McCracken, and it was the first time she had spoken since.

"But if you cooperate, and do exactly as I say," McCracken went on, "then I swear not to harm a hair on this boy's head."

"HE'S LYING!" cried Reynie distressedly, but Milligan only looked at him in chagrin.

"Milligan isn't willing to risk it, is he?" said McCracken shrewdly. "He doesn't want to end a life."

Milligan snarled. "He will when his childrens' are on the line."

"Then it appears," said the Ten Man, "that we have come to a stalemate."

As if on cue, the unconscious Sharpe groaned. He was coming to.

McCracken smiled even more broadly. "Right on time," he said. "It wasn't a good move recycling that dart, Milligan: Apparently they don't work as well the second time."

Sharpe yelped when he realized what was going on and leapt to his feet. His alert changed into a smile when he saw that he and his partner had won.

McCracken spoke again. "You've only got one shot with that thing. There are two of us. You lose, Milligan. Now please do as instructed."

"No," said Kate softly.

Milligan stared anguishedly at her. He unfastened his utility belt and slid it across the floor, where it came to rest at McCracken's well-polished shoes. McCracken knelt to pick it up, and Kate said in a louder voice, "No!" McCracken ignored her. Reynie could only watch in horror.

Then, at a nod from McCracken, Sharpe approached Milligan and produced a pair of handcuffs from his pocket. Milligan stared sadly at Kate and Reynie as the Ten Man bound him to a metal bar on the railing of the Salamander.

"Milligan, no!" shouted Kate. McCracken glanced at her and chuckled.

When Milligan was incarcerated and devoid of any weapons, the leader of the Ten Men said, "Right." he pulled his handkerchief out of a breast pocket and pressed it to Reynie's face.

This time Milligan was the one who shouted, "NO! You said-"

"Milligan, I don't make promises to my enemies," said McCracken coolly.

Reynie was now struggling with renewed vigor. He bent his neck as far as it would go, he tried to bite McCracken's fingers, he stomped on the Ten Man's feet, but nothing helped. He tried to remember what Kate had said about resisting the drug, but his mind was already going blank. Everything was swimming before his eyes... Kate's face was going black... _No, _he thought... _Hold on..._

McCracken tossed Reynie's unconscious body unceremoniously onto the floor, where he came to rest very close to the edge. Then the Ten Man began advancing ever so slowly on Milligan. Kate was now weeping and yelling incoherently. She hated McCracken more than any other excuse for a human being she could think of. The sound of her sobs was only making McCracken grin more broadly. "Sharpe!" he commanded sharply. "Give me your pointer."

Sharpe tossed the silver laser pointer to his captain, who caught it and aimed it, not at Milligan's heart or head, but at his leg. "I'm going to enjoy this," said the Ten Man. "I don't think you need to die right away. We'll let it sink in a little, first. Let's see... I'll start-"

"PLEASE!" Kate screamed in despair. Milligan looked at her one last time, and knew that he could not bear for her to watch the Ten Men torturing him. She was still screaming mingled pleads and dire curses at the Ten Men.

But her voice was cut off by a particularly violent wave from the river. It splashed water onto the deck and caused it to rock back and forth just enough for the unconscious Reynie to topple overboard.

"He'll drown!" said Milligan.

"Like I said," McCracken said unconcernedly, "I only need one of the cherubs."

Milligan knew that Kate could save Reynie, even with her broken arm, but she was too busy whimpering about him. In that moment Milligan made his choice. He kicked out at an open briefcase while the Ten Men were still staggering, and the only item still inside it flew into the air: a ball-point pen. He snatched it with his mouth and shoved the tip into the inside of his own cheek. It did not stick, but fell to the floor. However, it had punctured the tissue and the fast-acting poison was already working. As it coursed through his veins and he fell to kind of half-kneeling position, held up by his handcuffed arms, he tried to convey with his eyes to Kate that she had to save Reynie. Milligan heard her final wail of grief before it was all snuffed out like a candle.

Kate wanted to run to the Ten Men and tear them to pieces, she wanted to pummel them into oblivion, but she could not run, she sould not punch; the pain was still to intense. The churning water would numb it enough to go after Reynie, if she could manage to drag herself over to the ladder without being grabbed. Saying a silent apology for abandoning her father, but knowing he had already gone beyond help, she launched herself over the edge and plunged into the water. McCracken was bounding after her, and Sharpe was yelling for him to stop. "It's not worth it!" he shouted, but McCracken roared, "IF THEY BOTH DROWN, MR. CURTAIN WON'T HAVE ANY HOSTAGES!" Then the river engulfed her and she heard no more from above.

The water was stone-cold and pitch-black. Kicking frantically and trying to swim with her good arm - the one with the long gash in it that was spreading dark red clouds of blood in the water - she futilely searched for a hand, a foot, hair, anything of Reynie's to grab on to. Once she felt McCracken's hand groping for her ponytail, but she escaped him.

By now she was totally disoriented. The only way she knew the difference between up and down was the bright light coming from the surface. She sensed tendrils of darkness creeping up around the edges of her vision. Knowing that she had only seconds before blacking out, she kicked a few feet up towards the air. The darkness was all-encompassing now, and her limbs had stopped moving. Her last thoughts were ones of utter hoeplessness.

The entire Mysterious Benedict Society was now unconscious, injured, and in mortal peril.


	12. The Lion and the Wildcat Cub

Author's Note: **Greetings after a particularly long absence! Parts of this chapter were written two and a half years ago, and other parts took two and a half years to write. Therefore, there might be some fluctuation in writing quality.**

**Third Island has always been about Kate more than any other Society member. The previous chapter was the climax of Reynie's story; chapter nine was the climax of Sticky's story; chapter six might even be considered the climax of Constance's story. Now comes the climax of Kate's story.**

**This chapter is fifteen pages long in MS Word. And you thought LAST chapter was long! Hopefully this chapter will give you a break from the cliffhanger-streak I've been on lately.**

**Aaaaaaaaaand finally, I apologize in advance for FF randomly making half of my horizontal barriers invisible.**

* * *

Disclaimer: **It's not even worth putting a stupid joke here, because it would ruin the story.**

* * *

**...**

* * *

Reynie woke up sopping wet and feeling extremely nauseous. His clothes were drenched, and he shivered uncontrollably. His stomach felt as though a goat had rammed it. Coughing, he sat up. He was on grassy ground, and swift water ran in front of him.

"Nice of you to join me," said a lazy voice to the side. Reynie turned his head.

Standing about five yards away (Kate would know, Reynie thought groggily) was a tall man with soaked brown hair. He was wringing out his tie. Everything came flooding back: the handkerchief, the river, the Salamander, and…

Reynie felt sick. What had happened to Milligan? What had happened to Kate? He put a hand to his head woozily, and vaguely remembered McCracken breaking her arm. Cold fury surged through him; though it was not as cold as the water from Stonetown River chilling him to the bone.

All he managed to say was, "Y-you."

A deep chuckle. "What, no thanks?"

"_Thanks?_ Why would I thank you?"

"It may have escaped your notice, but it wasn't Milligan or dear Kate who saved your life."

Reynie was silent while he mulled over this pronouncement. His brain felt numb and waterlogged. "Where am I?" he murmured finally.

"To be perfectly honest," said McCracken, cupping his hand above his eyes and peering into the distance, "I don't know where we are."

Reynie propped himself up on his hands. Nothing about this place was recognizable to him; they appeared to be in the middle of nowhere somewhere along the Stonetown River.

McCracken was pulling something out of his pocket. It was paper, having survived the river due to lamination. He unfolded it, and Reynie saw that it was a map.

"Let's see…" muttered McCracken, "Landmarks… the curve here… then that would put us…"

Reynie was gauging his chances of escape. There was nowhere to go, and he was in no fit state to run. Maybe he could jump into the river...

But before he could make up his mind, McCracken shouted "Aha!" and turned to Reynie with a grin on his face.

"You'll be pleased to know that I've determined our location," he said, and Reynie didn't know how to feel about that.

"Fortunately," the Ten Man went on, "We're very near Mr. Sir's cave—I assume you heard all about Mr. Sir in your clever little hiding place—so we can walk there, and then I can get the necessary equipment to get us back to the island."

It didn't sound very fortunate to Reynie.

* * *

Kate came to herself with a faceful of mud. She spat it out and tried to prop herself up on her arms, but they sank up to her shoulders in the goop.

Turning over onto her back, Kate was blinded by a light that was not actually very bright at all, but seemed like the surface of the sun compared to the blackness of the last minute. She sat up quickly, and all the blood rushed out of her head. She shielded her eyes, and then her surroundings came into focus.

She was on the river. Luckily, it was a very shallow part of the river, and she had not drowned. The water was much warmer here; it was almost like sitting in a cool, very muddy bathtub. Something had disturbed the riverbed, and mud had been thrown up wildly, meaning that it was now more of a bog than a proper river.

After a few seconds, she remembered what had happened and why she was here. She remembered everything from the moment they had been caught by the Ten Men up to her plunge into the river, when her consciousness had flickered and gone out like lights in a thunderstorm. It never occurred to her to cry; that wasn't how Kate's brain worked. What had happened to Milligan was a horrible thing, but she couldn't cry about it now. There was a job that needed doing.

If Reynie was alive, he was with McCracken. If he was with McCracken, then they were at the prison. And even if Reynie had drowned, Mr. Curtain was at the prison—and Mr. Curtain had to be stopped.

Action first. Grief later.

Kate stood up. Looking around, she saw a landscape that appeared similar to Faul's Prairie: miles of low hills and grassland, with the Stonetown River cutting through it. Many disturbed mussels and other mud-dwelling creatures were wriggling all around where she was.

And where _was_ she? The landscape was unrecognizable and uninhabited. She'd never seen this part of Stonetown before, if she was even still in Stonetown.

She could see the path of the river. The mud had been turned up in an obvious pattern: the tracks of tank treads—the Salamander's. The great armored vehicle had been this way, which could only mean one thing. The Ten Men were returning to Mr. Curtain, and Kate had a feeling they would only do that if they had Reynie in their clutches.

It would be easy enough to follow the tracks; she was lucky the water was so shallow and muddy in these parts. But which way? A fine how-do-you-do it would be if she ran along the tracks, only to find that she had been going backwards. She knew that Third Island was due west from the city along Stonetown River. Now she just had to figure out which way was west.

She looked up. The moon (nearly full) was high in the sky, but it was obviously closer to one side of the great dome than the other. Her instincts told her that it was an early part of the night. However, she also knew that the moon rose and fell at different times each night. She closed her eyes, trying to remember exactly what her calendar had said. It seemed so long ago that she had last looked at it, safe in her own bedroom….

At last, she had it. The moon was in the east half of the sky. Blessing her own memory, Kate turned to face the west end of the river, and the prison, determined to achieve this one justice. She began to sprint.

* * *

The cave was just as Reynie remembered it, with one difference: there was no light in it.

"Mr. Sir?" McCracken boomed. "Hello?"

There was a huge squeal from within the cave. "What's that? Who's there?"

"It is I," said McCracken simply.

"McCracken? Is that you?"

A hunched figure toddled unevenly into the moonlight. Mr. Sir was not what Reynie had expected, but he definitely seemed the type who would live in a cave. He was humpbacked, and he wore a faded navy jacket over a stained white shirt, with ripped slacks and bare feet. A very thin layer of white hair hung down to his elbows, and his face was covered in grey stubble. His unusually jumpy eyes stared in slightly different directions, but he was looking at McCracken.

"McCracken!" he exclaimed, clutching his heart. "You gave me a turn!" His voice was creaky and high-pitched. "What on Earth brings you here at this hour? And why isn't he blindfolded!" He stared accusatorially at Reynie, who found himself quailing under the harsh gaze.

"I haven't got a blindfold," said McCracken, "and I'm afraid I can't let this one out of my sight. May we come in?"

Mr. Sir seemed reluctant, but he said "Yes... Yes, of course. Do come in!"

"Thank you," said McCracken with a satisfied smile.

The interior of the cave was not what Reynie had been expecting. He'd expected evil-looking contraptions and torture devices, but all that seemed to be in the cave were boxes—stacks upon stacks of cardboard boxes.

McCracken seemed confused as well. "What's all this?" he inquired. "You're not moving again, are you?"

"Well, I..." Mr. Sir was obviously an incredibly paranoid, jittery person—so much so that Reynie almost felt sorry for him. "Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. You know I never stay in one place for very long." He gave a nervous little laugh.

"You certainly don't," said McCracken. "This is astounding progress in packing up, considering I was here only a few hours ago."

The old hermit shrugged and smiled, showing sparse teeth. "I get a lot of practice." Then his face clouded. "Where are the others, McCracken?" he asked, suddenly suspicious.

McCracken hesitated, seeming to wonder whether or not he should tell Mr. Sir the truth. "They're headed back to the prison," he finally said. "They had to drop me off with young Reynie here to see to some unfinished business—top secret, you understand—and now I need a way of catching up to them."

The Ten Man was playing a very clever game. Reynie could see that the news of Milligan's disastrous appearance would have caused Mr. Sir to have a heart attack, so McCracken was inventing a story that did not involve enemy infiltration.

Mr. Sir went for McCracken's lies hook, line, and sinker. "Of course!" he said. "I think there's something in the back... This way, please."

He led McCracken and Reynie to a deep part of the cave, where two unusual-looking aquatic vehicles were resting. One of them was as big as the Salamander and completely unrecognizable, but the other was small, streamlined, and somewhat resembled a jet ski.

"I'll need the big one for my move," said Mr. Sir, "but you can borrow the little fellow."

"Thank you very much," said McCracken, the picture of manners and gentlemanliness. "I might also need something to make sure the little urchin stays close to me."

"Ah..." said Mr. Sir. "I just ran out of handcuffs—but I've still got a length of chain, if you'd like to use that."

"That'll be fine."

Mr. Sir retrieved something that looked like a chain of linked paperclips, but which Reynie knew was actually made of unbreakable high-tensile metal. He wrapped it around Reynie's wrist and squeezed it so tightly that Reynie winced, tying it off and tying the other end around McCracken's wrist. "Will that do?" he said, eyes flitting from face to face. For all his insecurity, he seemed to have no reservations about looking a kidnapped child in the eye.

"It will," said the Ten Man.

As McCracken moved the jet-ski-like vehicle over the floor of the cave, Mr. Sir watched Reynie nervously. "You know, McCracken," he said, "that boy's seen my equipment now—not to mention my face. You _are_ going to brainsweep him, aren't you?"

"Of course," said McCracken without even looking back.

Reynie swallowed.

* * *

After about half a mile, Kate's feet felt ready to fall off, and her ankles were swollen. Pausing momentarily, she took her shoes off of her bare feet—she, like her friends, had lost her socks long ago in the elevator shaft—and tossed them into the river; they'd be nothing but extra load to carry.

The cool mud felt wonderful between her toes. She kept running, and though the trail disappeared from time to time, she knew where to go; at any rate it was always visible whenever she came to forks or tributaries. Finally, a large stone brick wall was in sight—unfortunately, she seemed to be on the opposite side of the island to the part of the wall she had demolished.

Kate paused. Should she continue on to the gate? She sized up the wall. It was rather uneven and would be easy to climb, if she wanted to. If she climbed over she might beat Sharpe to the prison. She would have to deal with the barbed wire at the top, though. Kate steeled herself: it was worth it.

In less than a minute she was at the top, maneuvering over the razor wire. She knew easy ways to avoid damage from barbed wire on a chain-link fence, but a stone wall was different. She looked at the angle brackets, which were used to keep the barbed wire at a forty-five-degree angle from the wall, to make it harder for prisoners on the inside to climb over; this wall was designed to keep people in, not out. If she carefully slipped her hands through the barbs and grabbed hold of an angle bracket, she could leap over the razor wire.

She managed it without incident, other than a long but shallow cut on the lower half of her right leg. Barbed wire was very possible to climb over—its purpose was only to delay the climber, so as to give the prison guards more time to spot him or her. However, as all the Ten Men were gone, there was no one guarding the complex at the moment. Having successfully hopped the fence, Kate set off at a run again.

* * *

McCracken pounded his fist on the door of Mr. Curtain's office, from which an odd, low humming sound was coming. A pause, and then Mr. Curtain opened it. His face was red and glistening with perspiration, a welding mask on his head. If he strained his neck, Reynie could just see a large wheel inside the room.

"What do you want _now_, S.Q.? I'm trying to..."

Mr. Curtain's eyes flitted over the two of them, before they promptly closed and he crumpled to the floor. In a weary and practiced motion, McCracken saved him from a severe bump on the head—elbowing Reynie's eye quite painfully in the process.

Curtain's narcolepsy didn't keep them waiting for long; two minutes of finger-drumming and impatient noises saw him awake. "Wh—what are you doing here?" Mr. Curtain sputtered furiously. "What's happened with Rubicund? Why is _he_"—he jabbed a finger at Reynie's nose, causing Reynie to cross his eyes looking at it—"here with you?"

"There were...complications," said McCracken. "Do you have anything to cut this with?" He held up his hand, and consequently yanked up Reynie's.

Trying to avoid another bout of narcolepsy, Mr. Curtain nodded and wordlessly produced a pen-like handle with a tiny razor-edged disc protruding from one end, like a glasscutter. Once turned on, it sawed through the high-tensile metal fairly easily. Reynie was left with a slender paperclip-link chain dangling from his right wrist. McCracken flexed his own newly freed wrist.

"Tell me about these 'complications'," said Mr. Curtain, sitting down and running his fingers through his hair—he'd taken off the welding mask.

So McCracken began to relate the events that had taken place in the evening hours (careful to emphasize his own loyal and helpful role). Reynie tuned most of it out, having lived the story himself. His attention was, however, recaptured when McCracken reached the point after he, Reynie, had blacked out.

"Once I finished with the boy," the Ten Man was saying, "Sharpe and I were about to deal with Milligan—but he made short work of himself."

Reynie's heart skipped a beat.

"Are you sure?" Mr. Curtain sounded and looked skeptical. "Remember the last time you thought Milligan was dead?"

McCracken pretended to look offended. "You've never paid me so little in my entire career! I wouldn't be likely to make _that_ mistake again, would I? Anyway, Reynie here"—presently he patted Reynie's shoulder—"his plucky little friend with the bucket made a foolhardy rescue attempt which obligated me to stop at least one of them from drowning."

"Well," Mr. Curtain replied, "I should say you failed at the 'at least' part."

Reynie refused to believe that either Milligan or Kate had been put out of action. He _would not_, he _would not_ cry. He needed to have his wits about him if he was going to get out of this mess.

"You're certain Milligan's dead?" said Curtain.

"As a doornail," McCracken replied. "He used one of my own poison syringes."

Reynie had stopped listening again. Partly in the hope of escaping, partly to distract himself from thoughts of Milligan and Kate, he was now analyzing the room and its exits. There were no windows, and only a single air vent that was welded shut. It was, after all, a prison. Most of the wreckage had been cleared out of Mr. Curtain's office, save for the inexplicably intact computer parts. The door was unlocked, but McCracken was two feet away from it (and still had his hand on Reynie's shoulder). He was going to have his work cut out for him in any sort of escape attempt. But he _had_ to escape.

He had two options: be brainswept and held prisoner for the rest of his life... or find a way out.

* * *

In spite of the lack of guards (or perhaps because of it), Kate wanted to get out of the open as quickly as possible. She ran toward the nearest entrance. Now that she was out of the mud, she somewhat regretted getting rid of her shoes; the ground was pebbly and tough on a bare human foot.

Slipping through the door, Kate gave a little sigh of pleasure as the cold conditioned air splashed over her. She looked around. The corridor was deserted, so she wouldn't be captured—but where to go next? She thought the Ten Men would have probably taken Reynie to Mr. Curtain's office; and even if Reynie wasn't there, Mr. Curtain was no match for her in a physical fight. She could overpower him and hold him hostage to keep the Ten Men away. _He_ would be _her _prisoner. All she had to worry about was...

_S.Q._

"Kate?" said S.Q. Pedalian, his mouth dropping open in astonishment.

In a flash, Kate was at the other end of the hallway pressing her hand over S.Q.'s mouth. "Please don't struggle or yell," she said, hating herself. **"**I really don't want to manhandle you."

To her astonishment, S.Q. threw his gangly arms around her in a tight hug. Kate let go of his mouth in surprise. "Kate," said S.Q., sounding genuinely relieved, "I'm so glad you're safe!"

Kate blinked. "You are?"

"Of course I am! Thank goodness." He frowned slightly. "You realize we have to go back to Mr. Curtain now."

"_No!_" Kate shouted forcefully. "Please, S.Q., try to understand—Mr. Curtain wants to _hurt_ us. You _can't_ take me back to him!"

But S.Q. was shaking his head and smiling patiently, as though _Kate_ were the one who didn't understand. "I know what you kids think of him," he said, "but Mr. Curtain is really not a bad man. He only wants to protect the country. Being as brilliant as he is, he sees all kinds of instabilities in the government."

Kate looked at him with growing incredulity as he regurgitated the lies he had swallowed over his career with Mr. Curtain. "Unfortunately, a lot of very powerful people in the government won't listen to reason—they only want to hold on to their power, no matter how bad it is for everyone else. So he has to be secretive in his efforts to improve America until they can see sense; some friends of his in the government who _do_ understand are going to help him." S.Q. adopted a stern look. "He was going to meet with one of them today, to talk about new tidal turbines and power grids, but you've sacked this place and even sabotaged the Ten Men's rendezvous with him. You kids have made so many bad choices today, Kate. It isn't like you."

Kate gave him a sad, pitying smile, and ripped a strip of fabric out of her shirt. She then produced her rope, one of her only remaining tools since the contents of her bucket had been blown up.

S.Q. didn't notice. "Come on. Let's go see what Mr. Curtain has to—"

Feeling a heavy pang of guilt, Kate stuffed the fabric into his mouth and began to bind him.

* * *

"I don't see how we can say here," said McCracken. "The Wetheralls may be out of the picture—"

"Don't count on it," muttered Reynie.

"—but the Contraire girl and the bald one are still out there on Faul's Prairie. At some point they're going to wake up and tell Benedict where we are."

"But McCraig is there too, isn't he?" said Mr. Curtain. "He can deal with them."

"He was tranquilized," McCracken replied. "He's not able to deal with anyone."

"The Whisperer cannot be moved!" cried Mr. Curtain in frustration. "I haven't finished the modifications!"

"Finish them, then. Sharpe's not back with the Salamander yet; you have time."

"We've set up shop here. It took _months _to—"

"The prison is half-destroyed. Your government spy has been captured—"

"Thanks to YOU!"

They were walking—Mr. Curtain had left his wheelchair in his office for some reason—briskly down a basement corridor, toward the elevator, away from a room full of stored electronic parts. Mr. Curtain was carrying a bundle of radio antennae and McCracken a heavy computer. The monstrously strong Ten Man had it under one arm, trying to break Reynie's humerus with his other hand. Mr. Curtain was fuming. "Don't think you're forgiven, McCracken," he growled. "Your miserable failure has lost me three hostages, my hideout, and control of hundreds of power grids."

"I killed Millig—"

"A small comfort," said Curtain dismissively. "And he technically killed _himself_. This will be investigated, McCracken. _Benedict_ will investigate this. My entire plan could be ruined!"

They entered the elevator, Mr. Curtain shouting lividly about the loss of his informant, McCracken standing silently. As it moved upward, Reynie happened to glance above him—

—and met the face of Kate Wetherall.

Kate was crouching on top of the elevator cab. The panel in the ceiling was gone again, and he could see the cable that they were slowly climbing, the one from which he had nearly fallen yesterday. She put a finger to her lips and mouthed "_Leave it to me._"

Kate was here. Kate was going to save him. Kate was _alive._

In his astonishment and delight, a broad grin spread across Reynie's face. Mr. Curtain paused in his tirade and narrowed his eyes. "Don't you laugh at me, you little insect!" he snapped. "I'll have—"

Suddenly, McCracken exclaimed "The girl!" He had seen Kate.

"Snakes and dogs!" Mr. Curtain collapsed on the elevator floor and began to snore.

McCracken let go of Reynie to snatch Kate's leg with both hands. The elevator door opened, ignored by everyone inside of it. Reynie had no idea what to do; Kate couldn't reach for a weapon because she was using her only functional arm to resist McCracken's pull—and the effort was costing her dearly—and not even a miracle was enough for Reynie to wrestle him off of her.

Mr. Curtain snorted and bumped into Reynie's foot; Reynie glanced down at him and saw a glint of silver—and then he knew what to do.

McCracken was jeering as he tugged on Kate's leg. "Aw, come on, ducky! Or do I need to break another one of your little bones?"

One of her little bones smacked McCracken in the face. He spat blood on the floor and looked back at her, and this time he bore a very ugly expression indeed. "I'll take that as a _yes_," he said with none of his usual sanguinity. He grasped one of her bare toes and began to slowly bend it back. "Let's see how many little piggies we can snap before—_Euuhuhh_...!"

McCracken's whole body shuddered and went limp. He slumped onto the wall and stared, shocked and panting, at Reynie. Reynie knew the feeling: his body would be numb, his mind would be addled, his hearing and vision would have gone fuzzy; he'd probably have a faint burning taste in his mouth. Reynie carefully removed Mr. Curtain's silver gloves.

Kate hopped into the cab and looked at McCracken with disdain. "Come on!" she said. "Let's go!" They left the elevator—but not before Reynie had pressed the buttons for all the upper floors and the roof. They ran a few yards down the hall and turned back to look at McCracken leaning against the wall and Mr. Curtain sprawled on the floor. Reynie couldn't resist giving the stunned Ten Man a triumphant goodbye-wave as the doors closed and the elevator sped up and out of sight.

"Let's get out of here," said Kate. "Come on, it'll be faster to cut through the courtyard."

They burst through a side door into the small square courtyard and did not stop as they made for a door at the other end. They were almost back inside when a window above them shattered and something black, round, and huge hit the ground in front of them. The object unfurled and revealed itself to be McCracken, having jumped from a high story.

"I wanted to thank you, Reynie," he said, smiling, "for sending me upstairs—if you hadn't, I would never have found these." He held up two shining pairs of handcuffs.

"You're not the only one," said Kate, automatically assuming a fighting stance. "Look what I found outside your boss's office!"

It was her horseshoe magnet—the only item from her bucket that could have survived the explosion they triggered.

She swung it at the Ten Man's stomach, but McCracken was too quick for her. He rolled around her and lunged at Reynie, who yelped and tried to get out of the way—but he was too slow. McCracken rammed him into a drainpipe and handcuffed him to it. Then he turned to deal with Kate.

She faced him, snarling. "Oo, what a fierce little cub!" sneered McCracken gleefully.

"Kate, run!" Reynie called. "Take one of their cars and get out of here!"

"I'm not leaving you!" she yelled back.

McCracken laughed scornfully. "Oh, yes—like father, like daughter! That's right, come over here and help your friend."

"Don't you talk about my father!" she screamed.

"Your father is dead!" he shouted, his voice alive with mirth. "_I killed Milligan!_"

"SHUT UP!"

"_KATE!_"

Reynie screamed a warning as McCracken launched himself at her with the handcuffs. She vaulted away from him; he skidded to halt in the corner of the tiny courtyard. Kate hurled the magnet with all her might at McCracken's head. McCracken ducked, but the strong magnet had a different effect than Kate had intended; it pulled the magnetic handcuffs around and caused them to tighten around McCracken's wrists, slung around another drainpipe.

Reynie exhaled in amazement: McCracken was pinned.

McCracken and Kate looked no less astonished than he was. He saw a momentary panic flit through the Ten Man's eyes as he realized he was powerless to stop her now. Kate looked back and forth between McCracken and Reynie, handcuffed on either side of her. She tore her eyes off of the Ten Man and ran to Reynie, trying to figure out how she could free him.

"It's no use, Kate," Reynie said. "Go on, I'll be fine—he can't touch me now."

"There's got to be _some_ way..." She bit her lip.

"Aren't you going to come get your magnet?" McCracken asked from across the courtyard.

"No," she replied coolly. "I'm going to set my friend free, and we're going to leave you here to rot."

"It's a shame, then," the Ten Man said with an evil smile, "that the key to those virtually indestructible handcuffs is in my pocket."

She turned to look at him.

"Kate," said Reynie in a low, warning voice, "he's just trying to get you to approach him so he can hurt you."

"Nonsense!" said McCracken innocently. "I can't hurt her; look at me, my hands are cuffed behind me. _You'll_ never be able to get off the island anyway."

She took a step toward him.

"He's messing with your head, Kate!" said Reynie.

Kate shook her head and turned back to him. "I'll come back with the others," she said, and the beginnings of tears appeared in her eyes. "I'll come back for you, I promise."

"I know."

McCracken spat as she opened a door into the prison complex. "You're really going to leave him, just like that? I may not be able to harm him, but what about S.Q.?"

"I took care of S.Q.," Kate replied with her back to him. She sounded slightly rueful about it. "I...I tied him up and put him somewhere safe."

"Then what about Mr. Curtain?" McCracken said, sounding increasingly desperate. "_He_'s still here. He's working on the Whisperer even as we speak—and when he's done he'll see to precious young Reynie here!"

"Don't listen to him, Kate!" Reynie yelled. "GO!"

"He's modifying it!" McCracken shrieked in a last-ditch effort to halt her. "He's going to combine it with his wheelchair!"

She stopped dead.

McCracken grinned. "Yes, it's true. Very soon, the Whisperer will be portable—and he's going to achieve that easily, seeing as how there's no one left to prevent it."

"_I_ can prevent it," said Kate.

"NO!" said Reynie. "You have to _leave_! I saw the modifications, Kate!" For he now made sense out of what he had seen in Mr. Curtain's office—the disassembled Whisperer, Curtain in the welding goggles. "He's not finished! If you hurry, you can get back here with the authorities before he succeeds!"

"You're a coward, Kate!" bellowed McCracken over him. "Milligan's daughter doesn't reach his standards! Isn't that right, _Katie-Cat_?"

A deathly silence fell upon the courtyard.

Kate turned slowly; her face was murderous. "_Milligan_ calls me Katie-Cat," she said through gritted teeth. "_Not_ you."

McCracken smiled triumphantly. He had finally found the right button to push.

"No, Kate..." said Reynie frantically.

"Come on, Katie-Cat," said McCracken. "Come over here and teach me a lesson."

She let the door swing shut, stepping back into the courtyard.

"Kate, _no!_"

"Milligan's gone, Katie-Cat! You're mine!"

With a roar like a wildcat, Kate lunged at McCracken, ripping at his hair, punching him, clawing his face—and then McCracken's legs moved in a blur...and Kate fell to the ground, unconscious.

Reynie slumped in despair.

* * *

The moon was gone when Kate awoke. The sky was turning yellow around the edges, the stars slowly disappearing above the three people in the dingy courtyard. Painfully slowly, Kate remembered what was happening.

Suddenly she leapt up and looked around. Reynie was asleep. McCracken leered at her, struggling to stay awake himself. The Salamander didn't seem to have arrived yet. She'd been out cold for at least two hours—where was Sharpe?

And then she remembered Mr. Curtain. "Oh, my God," she breathed. "I have to stop him!"

"It's too late," the Ten Man jeered groggily. "It's over."

Ignoring McCracken—and shoving away her self-admonishments for giving in to his taunts—she bounded inside. Nearly slipping on some water on the floor that still had not dried up from the sprinklers going off, she burst into Mr. Curtain's office...and found it empty.

Mr. Curtain was gone. _The Whisperer_ was gone.

She left his office and headed for the stairs (there was no way she was going to take the elevator after everything that had happened in it). Maybe, just maybe, he was still in the building somewhere. After all, surely he would have looked for his henchmen before leaving. Obviously McCracken hadn't been rescued, and she was confident he wouldn't be able to find S.Q. in the elevator shaft boiler-closet.

As she was bounding up the stairwell, she noticed something in her peripheral vision—something outside, through the window. She skidded to a halt and ran back to get a closer look.

Someone was crossing the prison yard—in a wheelchair.

Kate practically flew to the ground-level floor and burst through the main entrance. "CURTAIN!" she bellowed wrathfully.

Mr. Curtain spun around, and a huge smile spread across his unshaven face. "Well, well," he said. "You decided to join me."

"The game's up, Curtain," said Kate, raising her fists.

"You're right," said Mr. Curtain. He flipped a switch on his wheelchair. "Game over. Checkmate—_you lose_."

For the first time, Kate noticed what was on his head: a red metal helmet.

Her surroundings fizzled. _No_, she thought. _No, this can't happen... Not again..._ Her senses were pulsing, becoming clearer and sharper and then blacking out again—and it was like her thoughts, her memories, were pulsing too. She fought to hold on, thinking of Reynie, of Mr. Benedict, of Sticky, of Constance, of Milligan, barely aware that she was swaying on the spot.

It was like someone was shouting in her ears. No, in her _mind_. Shouting so loud that it drowned out everything. And it only became louder the harder she fought it. There was nothing but the shouting of silence and the laughter of Mr. Curtain.

But there _was_ laughter. It wasn't in her head. Mr. Curtain was really laughing, and Kate was really standing there, and the prison was really behind her, besieged and crumbling. For a moment she broke the surface, retreating back into reality—but she was still being dragged mercilessly into mental oblivion. What, what could she do to stop this? She was trying to hang on, but it was no help...

And then it hit her. She was trying to hang on. Everyone who had ever been brainswept always _tried to hang on. _But hanging on only drew out the very thoughts being hunted into the forefront of her mind. Hanging on was presenting her memories to the Whisperer on a silver platter.

_My name is not Kate Wetherall_, she thought. _I have no father. I've never seen a red bucket in my life._ The thoughts were swept away as soon as she thought them, but it was working. The Whisperer was targeting her inventions instead of her real memories.

_I'm a hundred and one years old. I live on the moon. I have a dog with superpowers. _Even the most ridiculous false memories were gobbled up eagerly. The Whisperer would endlessly devour her inventions... but she could not invent endlessly. She would have to get out of range somehow. But what could she do in her present state?

Mr. Curtain's eyes were closed. He was not moving. He was concentrating intently on the session. Kate's mind was occupied wholly on the fierce grapple with him. But all her life, her body had been trained far beyond the average human's. She could tightrope-walk. She could balance on top of a rolling ball. She could twist herself like a pretzel. She could run on her hands. And walking? Just..._walking_? It was second-nature. She didn't _need_ to think.

Her thigh lifted and her knee bent. Her foot moved backwards through the air, and then came back down. The other leg did the same. Slowly but surely, she was walking backwards, away from Mr. Curtain. Gradually the Whisperer's hold on her weakened, until she was once again able to receive messages from her eyes and ears: Curtain was frowning, perspiring, his eyes closed. It was now costing him more effort than it was costing her.

The sun was rising.

Finally, she took one last step and broke out of range completely. Curtain opened his eyes, now looking quite mad. "Snakes and dogs!" he shouted. "How did you—? You're not—snakes and dogs...!"

Mr. Curtain buried his head in his hands, trying desperately to stay awake. The sun was a vivid orange, turning the sky pink around it, slowly creeping over the horizon.

"_No one_ can resist being brainswept..." he said pathetically.

"Wrong," said Kate, standing tall. "I can."

The brilliant sun had almost come completely over the horizon now—but its light was blocked by a dark shape.

The Salamander was rolling into the prison yard.

Mr. Curtain grinned. "Looks like Sharpe has arrived," he intoned as Kate sagged in despair. "How very punctual of—" He stopped abruptly.

There was a man in the Salamander, pulling out a weapon... but it wasn't Sharpe.

All three of them stared at one another in astonishment, and then Kate burst into tears as Mr. Curtain fought to remain wakeful. Like a cornered beast, he snatched up the silver gloves Reynie had left in the elevator and shot forward towards Kate.

"No more stalemates," said the man—and shot Mr. Curtain with his tranquilizer gun. Curtain was asleep before the dart hit him.

Kate looked through her freely flowing tears at her savior, framed against the light of the rising sun. He smiled at her, and said something he had said once before to her, with much the same reaction.

"Sorry it took me so long, Katie-Cat."

* * *

**...**

* * *

A/N: **Anything unexplained in this chapter (such as how Kate ended up on top of the elevator or how Milligan survived) will be explained in the final chapter.**

**Who else cheered when Reynie touched McCracken with the silver gloves? I did, and I'm the one **_**writing**_** the thing.**


End file.
